Popes and Priests and Alter Boys

With the Pope's visit to the US this week, it seems you can't turn anywhere without hearing someone ask what he will say or do about the "Pedophile Priests Scandal." First of all, what do they expect him to say? Do they think that there is some chance that he's going to give his blessing to the actions of these Priests? I mean, come on, let's get real.

Anyway, this is something that has been extremely annoying to me. They keep calling the offending Priests "Pedophiles" but let me let you in on something. I realized this when I read "The Marketing of Evil." See, this has been presented to us with a very specific agenda in mind. There could be no question that what had been happening in some Parishes was very wrong, and certainly was a worthy news story, and of course, you can expect a liberal media to latch on to any chance to damage any Church that holds to any belief in Jesus.

Anyway, what I'm talking about here is the media bias implicit in the word "Pedophile." In a vast majority of these cases, the boys who were assaulted were post-pubescent. Pedophilia, according to Merriam-Websters online dictionary means: "sexual perversion in which children are the preferred sexual object" meaning, or course, pre-pubescent children. Therefore, Pedophile is not a fitting description for most of these Priests. So how should they have been described in the interest of factual accuracy? That's simple, they are predatory Homosexuals. Of course, there is an obvious problem with actually calling them that. It would seem to cast Homosexuality in a bad light, and there is no way liberals want to do that.

Anyway, I'm not saying that it's not a story, and I'm not saying that it shouldn't have been reported, certainly it should have been, and the Catholic Church in the US has done a terrible job of dealing with this problem, in fact, they official response has been to simply cover things up, so, someone had to hold these sexual predators, and those who have protected them, accountable for their actions. The problem is that calling them pedophiles colors the story, and does not help people to actually understand what is going on. I also understand that the Pope had to address the issue in some way while he was here, but I think that him saying that he was ashamed is pretty much all he could say.

I know that there are some people who would read something like this wonder why I would make such a big deal about the misuse of just one word, in the telling of this story, but that one word is the critical link when it comes to the accuracy of the reporting of this story.

I may not be able to change the way the media in this country reports things like this, but at least all three of you who read my blog will know the truth.