The Young Turks Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur Spread some Anti-Catholic Lies.

A Commentary on another Young Turks Mental Meltdown

Fourteen Lies in Four Minutes.

 

A Summary: Regardless of what the Young Turks'Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur would lead you to believe, Catholic nuns in Ireland didn't stuff the bodies of 800 dead children into a septic tank.

The lies:
1. (0:12). No Ana, the home wasn't shut down because of, as you falsely claim, a significant number of children would die in the home. From page 7 of the Catholic League report, Bill Donohue states that:

"In 1961, the building was falling apart and needed to be renovated. But no funds were available, so it closed. The nuns handed over all the records to the authorities, which today is called the Health Service Executive in Galway. In the early 1970s, the building was demolished to make way for a new housing complex."

 2. (0:20). Really Ana? Who? Who often wondered about the bodies?

3. (0:27). No Ana, Catherine Corless never said she found any bodies of dead babies let alone 800 of them in a septic tank.

4. Again Ana, you're wrong. There is no evidence that dead babies were disposed of in a septic tank. Back in the 1970s a couple of young boys found some skeleton remains (15-20) in what has been variously described as an old concrete water tank, or a crypt.

* (0:44).  Seriously Ana, you're quoting a story for the notoriously anti-Catholic Washington Post on a matter regarding the Catholic Church! That's a bit like asking the Westboro Baptist Church about homosexuality.

5. (1:09). No Cenk, there is no evidence that a lot of these children died as a result of malnutrition. This time quoting from a retraction given by the Associated Press (AP):

"Contrary to the allegation of widespread starvation highlighted in some reports, only 18 children were recorded as suffering from severe malnutrition."

6. (1:19). Cenk, I'm guessing that because you are a person who believes that killing human life within a mother's womb is an acceptable practice, you then have a need to demonize those with a contrary view. But according to historical accounts the nuns provided love and care to these women and children. See pages 9 and 10 of the Catholic League report.

7. (1:23). Again Ana and Cenk, 800 baby bodies have not been found, and even if they are found at some time in the future, so what? That doesn't prove anything other than the fact that 800 dead babies, who died over a 36 year period were buried in a plot on the site where they lived. So what, how is that even a story?

8. (1:29). Oh come on Cenk! Haunted by it? On a positive note, at least you're now bringing in some light relief.

9. (1:41). Really Ana? Have you ever spoken to the parents of these girls who were sent to these homes? How on earth would you know these parents thought their daughters were promiscuous? I'm guessing you got this intimate knowledge from the same people who told you the lie that some Irish nuns dumped the bodies of 800 dead babies into a septic tank!

10. (1:45). Again Ana, how the hell would you even know the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy of these women? You just seem to be making this up as you go!

11. (2:00). Actually Ana, the reports of the day seem to indicate that considering the circumstances at the time, the children were actually well looked after. Again, see pages 9 and 10 of the Catholic League report.

12. (2:12). Again Ana, there is no hypocrisy. The Catholic nuns were pro-life and they dedicated their lives to helping some of the most disadvantaged people in their society at the time -- abandoned single mothers and their children, and all for no material gain to themselves. If, as you say Ana, "these nuns had disdain and hatred for these children born out of wedlock", why did these same nuns dedicate their lives to helping them. You should be praising these nuns, not tearing them down. But then, anti-Catholicism is always hateful and irrational isn't Ana.

13. (2:23). Hang on Cenk. Your original claim was that 800 babies died over a 36 year period from 1925 to 1961. Now, given that Atheists like to continually tell the rest of the world how intelligent they are, how is it you didn't pick up the obvious mathematical error? If two babies died every week for 36 years than that would equal 3744 dead babies. So it's not just the whole theme of your anti-Catholic rant that doesn't compute, neither does your basic math.

* (2:33). Cenk, you can't crap all over anti-abortionists and than suddenly turn round and say you're not. By the way, do you ever say anything critical of those who support the killing of human life in the womb? Ever.

* (2:57). Yes Cenk, those Catholic nuns helping those abandoned women and children probably were with God. If there is a God don't you think God would have wanted people to help those women and children? Of course if there is no God, then there is not moral demands on anyone to care for another human being. Hence your belief that killing a human being through abortion is okay.

* (3:00). Cenk, I'm not sure what crazy interpretations of scripture you're talking about, or what crazy dogma you're talking about, but whatever it was that caused those Catholic nuns to dedicate their lives to help the less fortunate of people, and to do so for no material gain, I think that would be the opposite of crazy.
Now regarding the issue of shaming, yes it can be cruel, but it is also a normal part of societal norms used to discourage unacceptable behavior. And it can be easily argued that historically, having sex outside of marriage was bad for society. Again Bill Donohue addresses this issue well on pages 11 and 12 of the Catholic League report.

14. (3:26). Cenk, It is beyond belief that a rational person could describe a home that provided food and shelter to abandoned women and children as being a trash bin. The reality is that the alternative to these Catholic run homes was indeed living among the real trash bins in the street. And these homes didn't ruin the lives of these women and children, they instead provided a lifeline and support to these women and children who otherwise would have been left homeless and broke with no food or shelter.


* (3:52). Cenk, I'm sure even you can't miss the irony of your last comment. Nearly everything both you and Ana have said over the last four minutes were based on things that simply weren't true.
Don't they have words for that kind of speech! I think it's called BIGOTRY and HATE SPEECH -- The two core components of any anti-Catholic rant.

Additional commentary form other sources:

Australia's left wing public broadcaster, the ABC Media Watch program.
Atheist writer and commentator Brendan O'Neill, from Spiked online.
The Catholic League Report - Ireland's Mass Grave Hysteria.
Extract of Associated Press (AP) retraction regarding report on Tuam home for abandoned mothers.

Fr. Robert Barron on Bill Maher and Biblical Interpretation

The 800 Septic Tank Babies That Never Were.

Anti-Catholics are still unhinged.

From Brendan O'Neill at Spiked Online.

The Tuam tank: another myth about evil Ireland.

Laurie Goodstein only interested in Sex Abuse if it's Catholic

Continue Reading at The Media Report

Pope Lauds Benedict For Abuse Response

From the Catholic League

Pope Francis (Left) with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

Bill Donohue comments on remarks made today by Pope Francis on the sexual abuse scandal:

No one has done more to check the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church than Pope Benedict XVI, but he receives very little credit for doing so. That is why what Pope Francis said today matters: he singled Benedict out for his yeoman efforts. “Benedict XVI was very courageous and has opened a new way.” Because of Benedict, he said, “the Church has done much, perhaps more than all the others.”

Pope Francis is twice right. Long before Benedict became pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, as head of the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation, called for swifter and stronger procedures to punish molesting priests. That was in 1988. In 2001, he was given exclusive jurisdiction over these matters, and in 2003 he was awarded the power to police priestly sexual abuse. When he became pope, he made it more difficult for practicing homosexuals to enter the priesthood, the net effect of which has been a sharp decline in the number of abuse cases.

In his interview today, Pope Francis said, “The Catholic Church is perhaps the only public institution that has moved with transparency and responsibility. No one has done more, and yet the Church is the only one that is being attacked.” The pope was obviously referring to the highly politicized, and maliciously conceived, United Nations report on the Vatican’s response to this issue.

Pope Francis not only speaks truth to power, and to the people, he tells it like it is to those who selectively rally to his side. Yesterday, his comments condemning anti-Catholicism were, as I predicted, all but ignored. His remarks today lauding his predecessor will similarly be given short shrift. Such is the politics of the left, religious as well as secular.

Cardinal Dolan Makes it Simple for the Mainstream Media

Pope Francis Didn't Change the Church's Teaching on Homosexuality

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

And let's not forget what Pope Benedict (Cardinal Ratzinger) said back in 1985 regarding the treatment of homosexuals:

"It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law."
Cardinal Ratzinger, 1985. Letter to the Catholic Bishops of the World, regarding the treatment of homosexual people.

New York Times Turns a Blind Eye to Child Sex Abuse

From the Catholic League

Yesterday, the New York Post ran a story titled, “Brooklyn DA Releases Names of 46 Convicted Child Sex-Abusers Who Terrorized the Orthodox Jewish Community From Within”; this covered a four-year period. This alarming story was not reported either yesterday or today in the New York Times. Take note: there haven’t been 46 credible accusations made against 40,000 priests in the United States in the last four years.

Peter Mullan and the Myth of the Sisters and the Magdalene Laundries

The McAleese Report shows that anti-Catholic film, Magdalene Laundries, is based on nothing but Peter Mullan's lies. 

From the Catholic League:

The man behind “The Magdalene Sisters” is Peter Mullan. The Irish writer and director said he got the idea for the movie by watching the 1998 TV film, “Sex in a Cold Climate.” That was a 50-minute documentary that described the lives of four women who lived and worked at the laundries. It made a big splash at the time, especially because it featured  Phyllis Valentine, a woman who said she was interred in the laundries because she was deemed “too pretty” by the nuns.

If, of course, it were true that the nuns rounded up “pretty girls” for placement in the laundries, that would indeed be a big story. It would also suggest that other such cases must have surfaced by now (unless we are prepared to believe that Valentine was the only “pretty girl” encountered by the nuns). But they haven’t: only Valentine has made this claim. In her case, we know that at age 15 she was moved from the orphanage where she was raised to the laundry. Such a transfer was standard practice, whether the girls were homely or pretty. By the way, the laundry was literally next door to the orphanage. It should come as no surprise that not a single nun who worked at either the orphanage or the laundry was asked to verify the “pretty girl” tale.

To say Mullan hates Catholicism would be an understatement. His comment that “There is not much difference between the Catholic Church and the Taliban” is unqualified. Anyone capable of saying the  Catholic Church is a terrorist organization can be trusted to portray it that way. So when he says that “The film encapsulates everything that is bad about the Catholic Church,” he is simply telling the truth. That was his goal, and he succeeded. He sought to throw as much mud as he could, and hope that at least some of it would stick. Mullan is so riddled with hate that he contends, “The worst thing about the Catholic Church is that it imprisons your soul, your mind and your d***.” This is the man whose depiction of the Church is taken at face value by movie reviewers.

Continue Reading at The Catholic League.

The Usual Suspects Exposed Again

From Gerard Henderson's Media Watch Dog

Issue 174, 15th March 2013

CAN YOU BEAR IT? – A SPECIAL POPE-FOCUSED EDITION

●  Chris Geraghty Casts The First Stone

Meet Chris Geraghty.  Aged circa 74, Mr Geraghty has not had the most newsworthy life. He was a Catholic priest who left the priesthood at age 38 to get married.  He subsequently became a solicitor, then a barrister and then a judge.  At the pinnacle of his career, your man Geraghty obtained the prestigious position of Judge of the NSW Compensation Court and District Court.

Normally, you would think that so brilliant a clerical and legal career would warrant, say, a brief self-published memoir. But no. Chris Geraghty has written three volumes devoted to his life and times.  An autobiographical trilogy, no less.

First there was Cassocks in the Wilderness followed by The Priest Factory followed by Dancing With The Devil: A Journey from the Pulpit to the Bench. According to Nancy’s calculations, there should be time for final missive-possibly titled “My Ultimate Life: From Womb to Tomb”. [Great. I would just love to review this in The Holy Name Monthly – if it still exists. – Ed].

On Wednesday, Chris Geragthy appeared on ABC Radio 702’s Mornings with Linda Mottram  to discuss the Pope and all that – along with a priest and a laywoman. It was not long before the retired judge spoke about child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. Let’s go to the transcript:

Linda Mottram : To pick up Chris’s point, the big issue in everybody’s mind – Catholic or not – around the world is the sex abuse scandals and how the Church has, or has not, handled it. Suggestions that the Church is moving forward on this. But Chris, I think you would argue that it’s made very little progress on this. Would you?

Christopher Geraghty :  Look, I think that it’s been a disaster really. The present Pope did very little. He had the opportunity to do it and he did very little. And when he was the offsider to Pope John Paul II, he did very little then too.

So Chris Geraghty is critical of Benedict XVI for doing very little to confront child abuse in the Church when he had the opportunity to do so.

But, what did (then) Fr Geraghty do about child sexual abuse in the Church when he had the opportunity to do so? You can be the judge.  This is what Chris Geraghty told Linda Morris over a beer in the Royal Ascot Hotel Paddington in 2012.  Linda Morris’ profile of Geraghty was published in the Sydney Morning Herald on 14 July 2012 on the occasion of the publication of Dancing With The Devil:

Geraghty has his own confession to make, admitting he never passed on to police or to his superiors information about a sexual relationship between a well known priest and one of the seminarians in his care. There were extenuating circumstances. Geraghty was sexually naive and the student spoke to him on condition of silence. Geraghty advised him to confront the priest, Father Vince Kiss, and to end the relationship, which had been going on since he had been about 12, and assisted him in “his search for a new life”. The two later renewed their friendship when the victim, a headmaster at a state school, came forward to testify against Kiss.

“I don’t feel remorseful about it I don’t feel guilty, but I do feel diminished. I’m regretful I was not more worldly wise, I wasn’t more informed, I wasn’t more educated; that I was never aware of the possibility that priests could be paedophiles as they were; and how to deal with it. If I’d known then what I know now and dealt with it aggressively, Vince maybe would not have interfered with a number of other boys and caused them untold trauma.”

So there you have it.  This week, Chris Geraghty used the facilities of ABC Metropolitan Radio in Sydney to bag Benedict XVI for doing “very little” to confront child sex abuse.  But Chris Geraghty neglected to mention the fact that, when confronted as a priest with one case of paedophilia, he did nothing at all.

Can you bear it?

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●  God Fails to Deliver an ABC-Compatible Pope – to the Disappointment of Paul Collins, Michael Rowland and Bev O’Connor

What a wonderful sight to see Paul Collins, a former Catholic priest of a liberal bent who is much loved by the ABC on ABC 1’s News Breakfast, at St Peter’s Square yesterday – just after the new pope was elected. Dr Collins (for a doctor he is) called it for the Cardinal Archbishop of Genoa.  It took Lisa Millar in Rome and News Breakfast co-presenters Michael Rowland and Beverley O’Connor some time to realise that the position had gone to the Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

Then Mr Rowland and Ms O’Connor commenced to express surprise and disappointment that the College of Cardinals had chosen Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who opposes abortion and same sex marriage, to succeed Benedict XVI. It seems that the News Breakfast  team was so busy hoping for a liberal pontiff that they forgot that the Catholic Church is a conservative organisation which is opposed to abortion and same sex marriage.  Can you bear it?

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● Phillip Adams on Kerry & Geraldine and Left-Liberal Company

While on the topic of the ABC’s coverage of the Papal Conclave, it’s notable that the public broadcaster trends to only hear the views of those who depict themselves as liberal or progressive Catholics.  Like Paul Collins and Geraldine Doogue – both of whom are currently in Rome.

On 27 February 2013, Phillip (“I was a teenage Stalinist”) Adams spent a full hour interviewing Paul Collins on ABC RN’s Late Night Live. In this interview:

▪ Adams mockingly referred to Cardinal George Pell as “our mutual friend”. Soon after, Collins said that Pell is in “the minority”.

▪ Collins mockingly said that the late B.A. Santamaria “will probably be listening” to the interview.

▪ Adams then mockingly referred to “Saint Gerard of Henderson” and then laughed loudly at his own joke.

▪ Collins then put the entire blame of the Labor Split of the mid 1950s on to Santamaria.

▪ Adams then proclaimed:

Phillip Adams:  This is “The Catholic Hour” on Radio National. Of course, the ABC is chocka with Catholics.  I don’t see why Gerard Henderson doesn’t understand that. He thinks the ABC is full of unreconstructed Stalinists but he’s overlooking St Kerry of O’Brien and St Chris of Uhlmann and of course most notably St Geraldine of Doogue.

In fact, Gerard Henderson has said that the ABC is replete with disillusioned Catholics and alienated ex-Catholics who disagree with the Church’s teachings on sexual morality.  That’s why the public broadcaster’s coverage of the Papal Conclave was so beholden to The Tablet’s  left-liberal critique of the Vatican.  And that’s why virtually all the ABC’s commentators on the Conclave got the eventual outcome so wrong. Can you bear it?

------------------------------

● Peter Munro’s Invincible Ignorance on Lent

Last Saturday, The Age’s Paul Munro wrote an uncritical profile on the Catholic priest – and Cardinal Pell critic – Fr Bob Maguire – about the Pope and all that. Maguire is much loved by critics of the Vatican.  This is how Paul Munro describes his lunch with Fr (“call me Bob”) Maguire:

It’s a Friday in Lent and the Catholic priest, known on TV and radio simply as Father Bob, orders a ham, spinach, mushroom and onion frittata with a side salad from the Let Me Be Frank cafe, in South Melbourne. I select a similarly sacrilegious BLAT sandwich. It’s big and tasty but perhaps not worth damnation.

Glaring through the window is the gothic bluestone of Saints Peter and Paul, Father Bob’s parish church for 38 years until his forced retirement in 2012. Shouldn’t Catholics be abstaining from meat today, I ask. ”Nah, not pinko leftists,” he says, his mouth full of food. ”He’s gone now, I can do what I like … I haven’t had a bloody omelette in years.”  ”He” being Benedict XVI, now merely Pope Emeritus Benedict I after retiring as head of the Roman Catholic Church.

It seems that both Mr Munro and Fr Maguire are invincibly ignorant of the Church’s rules with respect to Lent.  First, there is no longer a requirement that Catholics abstain from meat during Fridays in Lent. Second, a breach of such a rule – if it still existed – would never amount to “damnation”.  Third, it’s unlikely that Benedict XVI ever gave a toss about what Fr Maguire had for lunch.  Why would he? Can you bear it?

------------------------------

● Charles Waterstreet’s Invincible Ignorance on Papal Infallibility

The Sun-Herald’s Charles Waterstreet obviously knows as much about the doctrine of Papal Infallibility as his fellow columnist Peter FitzSimons.  That is, nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

This is what Mr Waterstreet wrote in his column last weekend:

When the rest of the Western world has long decided that absolute rule by monarchs should give way to the more democratic methods of elections, the Catholic Church maintains that not only should there be a solitary ruler, the Pope, but that on many matters he is infallible. The reports dubbed ”Vatileaks” included the findings of an investigation by a three-cardinal commission of inquiry headed by Spanish cardinal Julian Herranz Casado. They proved just how fallible 85-year-old Pope Benedict XVI had become. The Pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, stole and leaked Vatican correspondence that depicted the bitchery and witchery going on under the prominent nose of the pope.

This comment is hopelessly wrong.  The doctrine of Papal Infallibility only applies when the Pope, speaking on behalf of the Church, binds Catholics on a matter of faith or morals.  The doctrine was last invoked over six decades ago.  Charles Waterstreet’s comments are invincibly ignorant. Can you bear it?

------------------------------

▪ The Guardian-on-the-Yarra Bashes George Pell – Without Evidence Of Course

Last Monday, The Age’s religion editor Barney Zwartz wrote yet another attack on Cardinal Pell – under the heading “Tainted Pell out of race after lobbying”. The Zwartz piece commenced as follows:

Cardinal George Pell, tainted by sex abuse scandals, has no chance of becoming the 266th pope after Australian critics campaigned to publicise allegations that have long dogged him to Italian media and voting cardinals, according to Australian commentator Paul Collins.

Barney Zwartz and his left-liberal mates at “The-Guardian-on-the-Yarra” love nothing more than bashing mainstream Catholics like George Pell.  They care little that many Catholics, and other mainstream Christians, buy and advertise inThe Age.

These are the facts:

▪ George Pell has never been “tainted by sex abuse scandals”. Nor has he been “long dogged” by personal allegations against him.

▪ There was one allegation made against Cardinal Pell in 2002 concerning an event which allegedly occurred in 1961, when Pell was 19 and the male complainant was 12.

▪ The matter was investigated by former Victorian judge A. J. Southwell who found that he was not satisfied that the complaint had been established.

▪ Writing in The Age on 14 June 2010, Barney Zwartz acknowledged that Pell had been “cleared” of any offence by “a retired non-Catholic judge”.

The full details of this matter are discussed in Tess Livingstone’s book George Pell (Duffy & Snellgrove, 2002). The matter was never referred to Victoria Police.  George Pell gave evidence under oath before the Southwell Enquiry which had the status of a royal commission.

Yet Barney Zwartz claimed that Cardinal Pell has been “tainted by sex abuse scandals” despite previously acknowledging that this is not the case. Can you bear it?

Anaesthetist charged over hepatitis C outbreak - But don't mention abortion

It seems someone at the ABC went out of their way not to associate this criminal activity with the Abortion Industry - ditto for the ABC's radio news as well. Abortion isn't mentioned in the story or the articles tags.

From ABC News - 27th May 2011

Police have charged a doctor as part of an investigation into a hepatitis C outbreak at a Melbourne medical clinic.

Forty-nine women were infected after being treated at the Croydon Day Surgery in 2008 and 2009.

All of the woman have the same strain of hepatitis C as their anaesthetist, Dr James Latham Peters.

The 61-year-old Hawthorn man is facing 162 charges, including 54 counts each of conduct endangering life and negligently and recklessly causing serious injury.

Peters appeared relaxed in the dock of the Melbourne Magistrates' Court during a brief court appearance.

He was released on bail on strict conditions and had to provide a $200,000 surety.

He will return to court in August.

Continue reading at the ABC

Not Abortion but Foeticide?

True to form the ABC refuses to associate abortion with anything negative. So the abortion of unwanted unborn females in India (which is a bad thing) is not abortion but foeticide.

So did this couple who aborted their unborn twin sons because they were the "wrong sex" commit abortion or foeticide?

What Pope Benedict actually said about condom use.

What Pope Benedict actually said:
"There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants. But it is not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection. That can really lie only in a humanization of sexuality. " - Pope Benedict XVI

Read more by George Weigel at,
Deflating the New York Times' Condom Scoop
No, the Pope did not change Catholic teaching on condoms.

Also from Patrick Coffin and Jimmy Akin on Catholic Answers:

Who was missing from the March for Life?… The news media.

by Sheila Liaugminas | 28 Jan 2011
Last year Newsweek tried to claim young women were the ones missing. That fallacy exposed, they tried just ignoring it this year. So did most other big outlets. But media blackouts don’t work anymore. Except to marginalize the media…
In all the places that did cover Monday’s massive March for Life on the Mall of Washington, one theme emerged more than ever before: “the new face of the pro-life movement is young, vocal and rapidly expanding.”
Continue reading at MercatorNet.com

What the media refused to show:




But we've seen the media blackout before:

Top 10 Vatican news stories from 2010

From RomeReports.com

Courier Mail Continue Their Hate

Double click image for larger view

The Courier Mail continues to show its dislike of the Catholic Church and in particular the Papacy. The Courier Mail thinks a sign from the Protest the Pope Rally, which is factually wrong in 3 out of 4 of its statements, is one of the best protest signs for the year 2010.

The Media, the Pope and the Gay Kiss-in.

 8 November 2010. Catholic League of Australia.

If you ever wanted proof that the media does not give a fair go to the Pope and the Catholic Church then here it is.

Yesterday, the Pope arrived in Barcelona to open the new Cathedral of the Holy Family. As he was driving to the Cathedral around 100 to 200 hundred gay people staged a ‘kiss in’. This is compared to the 250,000 pilgrims who were there supporting the Pope. The protesters only represented 0.08% of the crowd.

Who do you think the media decided to focus on? These are the headlines of a few major Australian and international news services.

Continue reading The Media, the Pope and the Gay Kiss-in.

What Queenslanders Really Think About Abortion - The Catholic Leader

“What Queenslanders Really Think About Abortion" warns that an average swing of 12 per cent would be generated against members of State Parliament who voted in favour of decriminalising abortion.

The report has been sent in booklet form to all 89 members of the State Parliament aimed to convince those politicians in the middle the issue of abortion is much more complicated than is commonly presented.

Australian Family Association (AFA) spokesman Alan Baker told a media conference at the launch of the report at the Parliamentary Annexe last Monday, the independent opinion poll also showed there had been no swing in favour of decriminalising abortion since a recent Cairns trial related to abortion.

A Cairns jury on October 14 found a woman not guilty of procuring an abortion and a man not guilty of supplying drugs to procure an abortion.

Continue reading at The Catholic Leader

Full results of survey can be found here.

As usual the Courier Mail plays a role in pushing the Pro-Abortion agenda.

ABC’s religious department twisting the truth again.

Priest denies making claims about Mary MacKillop's excommunication

Clare Rawlinson and James Madden  The Australian October 07, 2010

THE priest who spent 25 years lobbying for Mary MacKillop's canonisation has angrily dismissed recent media reports.

The reports said the soon-to-be saint was excommunicated from the Catholic Church for exposing acts of child sex abuse by a South Australian clergyman.

Paul Gardiner, chaplain of the Mary MacKillop Penola Centre, said the claims, published on ABC Online and in Fairfax newspapers last month, were false, and he feared the misleading coverage was an attempt to take a swipe at the church and distract the public in the lead-up to MacKillop's canonisation on October 17.

ABC Online and Fairfax both reported that MacKillop's ousting from the church in 1871 was prompted by her exposure of a Kapunda priest's abuse of local children. The claims were based on remarks made by Father Gardiner in a documentary made for ABC TV's Compass program.

But both Father Gardiner and the program's executive producer deny ever making such an inference. "Early in 1870, the scandal occurred and the Sisters of Saint Joseph reported it to Father Tenison Woods, but Mary was in Queensland and no one was worried about her," Father Gardiner told The Australian.

Father Gardiner, considered the nation's foremost authority on the history of MacKillop, said his words had been twisted to suit the "ill will" of media outlets.

Continue reading Priest denies making claims about MacKillop's excommunication | The Australian

Response to CNN Documentary on the Pope

The Catholic League responses to another slur against the Pope.

William A. Donohue, Ph.D. Catholic League – 1st October 2010

The CNN documentary, "What the Pope Knew," which aired September 25, deserves a response.

The program begins with music and graphics that set the tone: those who think Pope Benedict XVI has been adept at combating priestly sexual abuse must realize that there is "a darker, more complicated story." Dark, yes, but from CNN's perch, the story is not all that complicated: the pope is guilty of "foot-dragging and, perhaps, obstruction."

We learn from CNN host Gary Tuchman that "For decades, before he became pope, Joseph Ratzinger was a high-ranking Vatican official who, more than anyone else beside Pope John Paul, could have taken decisive action to stem the sexual abuse crisis." Similarly, author David Gibson says the pope "always took the stalling tactic."

It is simply not true that Ratzinger was in charge of this issue "for decades." In fact, he wasn't given the authority to police the sexual abuse problem until 2001. What is truly astonishing is that Tuchman concedes as much later in the program. After he notes that "By 2001, the sexual abuse crisis was beginning to engulf the Catholic Church," he says, "The pope gave Cardinal Ratzinger and the CDF (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) the power to cut through the bureaucracy and handle all sexual abuse cases directly."

In other words, Tuchman was incorrect the first time when he said that "for decades" Ratzinger "could have taken decisive action." He couldn't have been in charge "for decades" if he wasn't given police powers until 2001 (he became pope in 2005).

Nowhere in the program is there any evidence that the pope was guilty of obstruction of justice. This is a serious charge—the most serious made in the course of the documentary. Yet to throw this out, without ever producing evidence to substantiate it, is malicious. It won't cut it to say that he was "perhaps" guilty of obstruction. CNN intentionally planted this seed and never explicitly addressed the subject of obstruction of justice again.

Continue reading at Catholic League: For Religious and Civil Rights

Embryonic Stem Cell Researchers Promise Everything but Deliver Nothing

By Diogenes | August 24, 2010 Catholic Culture

Read all the mainstream-media coverage of Judge Royce Lamberth’s decision to stop federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, and you may notice that two major themes emerge. Neither theme is inaccurate, yet both are misleading.

First, the conventional accounts remind readers that embryonic stem-cell research (ESCR) has great potential.

It is “promising but controversial research,” says the Wall Street Journal. It is a “promising new science,” Time magazine agrees. Scientists “hope to be able to use” ESCR to treat many diseases, Reuters reports. The Los Angeles Times cites a White House spokesman who said judge’s decision “carries the potential to block ‘critical, life-saving research.’" [My emphasis throughout]

Promise... promising… potential…hope. What you don’t see, in all those news accounts, is a report that scientists have used ESCR successfully to treat diseases, or are using ESCR in clinical settings right now. You don’t even read about successful ESCR experiments that could soon lead to medical breakthroughs.

Continue reading at Catholic Culture : Off the Record : promise them anything