Religion & Law

Michael Sean Winters' response to the Times story -- posted this morning by Michael P. -- on the scandal is worth reading.  Here's the opening:

This morning?s New York Times ?expose? regarding then-Cardinal Ratzinger?s role in the Vatican?s response to the clergy sex abuse crisis exposes more than it intended. It exposes the fact that the authors, Laurie Goodstein and David Halbfinger, and their editors, do not understand what they are talking about and, at times, put forward such an unrelentingly tendentious report, it is difficult to attribute it to anything less than animus.

The article put me in mind of Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde?s The Importance of Being Earnest. ?To lose one parent, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.? One or two mistakes are to be expected. The friend I consult on environmental matters tells me that when she reads the Times on the subject, she assumes they will get it wrong. But a slew of such mistakes raises doubts. Ignorance is a scarcely less heinous crime for a reporter than bias. You be the judge. . . .