Meanwhile, a woman in the United States has filed a claim against a leading American bishop. She alleges that she was abused by William Skylstad for a period of four years in the early 1960s while she was underage. Skylstad is the current president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and leader of the Spokane, Washington diocese. This claim is one of 135 that have been filed in the Spokane diocese, one of only three American dioceses to have filed for bankruptcy protection in settling its abuse claims. It is not yet clear whether Skylstad, who denies the allegations, will step down from his leadership roles during the investigation.
LEARN MORE Read Angela Bonavoglia's "New Battleground for Survivors of Priest Child Sex Abuse" at MsMagazine.com
The above is from The Feminist Wire's "More Abuse Allegations Against Catholic Priests." Read the paragraph above again and remind us of how the problems for the Catholic Church had to do with "gay" priests.
Can't do it? Well there's a reason for that. For instance, the above item does not indicate that there's a problem within the Church of "straight" priests. That's because heterosexuality and homosexuality have nothing to do with pedophilia.
But that's something the Church didn't appear aware of and something that the mainstream media rarely felt the need to note. Sex or sexual behaviors by an adult with a child constitute pedophilia. A pedophile's sexual desire is fixated/focused on a child.
But it was as though we had time traveled back to the 1950s as every stereotype at gay males was hurled and bandied while the witch hunt progressed. A priest being gay or straight was never the issue of sex with children.
You may remember the news of the nun who got pregnant. It got a little media pay before the demonization of gays got into full swing. We doubt the nun was impregnated by a "gay" priest. We also doubt the forced abortion had anything to do with a "gay" priest either. But it didn't fit the Church narrative and the media stepped lightly around such issues once it was time to build a funeral pyre for the "gay" priests. Nuns raped by priests also isn't an issue that the mainstream media is comfortable giving the same wide attention that they gave to the issue of "gay" priests.
In the "drama" of covering the "gay" priest issue, you might have expected the media to expand upon what appeared to be a limiting of the discussion by the Vatican. You would be disappointed. The Church blamed "gay" priests, the press ran with it. Occassionally an article might inform you that pedophiles and homosexuals were not the same category. Occassionally.
More often than not, they presented you with a Church spokesperson slamming the "gay" priests for sex with underage children (boys) and then they presented a quote from a gay man (sometimes a priest) and acted as though they had explored the issue and presented 'both' sides.
They did no such thing. They allowed a smear to stand.
In the process, the abuse of girls by pedophiles in the Church was allowed to fly under the radar as was the rape of nuns. The issue of boys being sexually molested/abused by priests never had a thing to do with homosexuality; however, if you asked the average media consumer to this day, we doubt they could tell you that fact -- and it is a fact.
Was it homophobia, ignorance or just the desire to jump on a "trend" story that prevented many reporters from doing their basic job? We have no idea. We'd suggest you ask them why they failed to question the paradigm created by the Church? Why, instead of questioning it, they made it the framework of their reporting?