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Blaming Gays:
Compare Coverage Elsewhere to
Spotlight Reports |
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Spotlight articles on
homosexuality and the priesthood:
Seminary ouster of outspoken gay points up issues
By By Sacha Pfeiffer, Globe Staff, 11/25/02
An accused priest speaks out
By Sacha Pfeiffer, Globe Staff,
9/1/2002
GAYS IN THE SEMINARY: Medeiros saw 'ominous' shift
By Sacha
Pfeiffer, Globe Staff, 4/9/2002
Famed 'street priest' preyed upon boys
By Sacha Pfeiffer, Globe Staff, 1/31/2002
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An Anomaly
Until early December, the Spotlight Team
did not write any stories about priests who
preyed on girls; however, it did cover one case that involved a
woman who claimed to have been abused as a child.
In
Nun placed on leave after abuse allegation, which
was published on November 21, Walter Robinson and Sacha
Pfeiffer tell the story of a Boston-area nun who was
placed on leave after being accused of engaging in
conduct with "sexual overtones" with a fifth-grade girl
at a school in Indiana forty years ago.
This story is interesting not
only because it conforms to the same-sex focus of
Spotlight reporting, but also because it contradicts
some of the excuses Spotlight reporters have offered for
refusing to write about female victims of abusive
priests, specifically, that they don't cover cases in
which the abuse occurred outside of New England, that
they don't write about cases unless they have some sort
of independent confirmation of allegations, and that
they focus on cases that are somehow representative of
the central characteristics of the scandal as a whole.
Here, the abuse allegedly
occurred in Indiana, the victim herself admits that she
does not clearly recollect the incident, and the article
emphasizes that allegations against nuns are "rare."
Also, the Spotlight Team has
covered cases in which the abuse took place in other
regions, for example,
Boston Bishop Named in Lawsuit;
N.J. priest stands by abuse accusation;
Charges lodged in Detroit vs. 4 priests; and
Suicides in Kansas parishes. |
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Globe story on the Vatican's ban
on gay seminarians:
http://www.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/stories3/110602_ban.htm
Compare to Boston Herald:
http://www.parcc.org/heraldgays.htm
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Globe article on gender and abuse:
Priest abuse cases focus on adolescents
By Michael Paulson and Thomas
Farragher Boston Globe
3/17/2002
Compare to USA Today (read carefully--headline is misleading):
Majority of abuse victims are male, research shows
7/23/2002
By Janet Kornblum, USA TODAY
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Until the end of the year, when
new revelations forced a change
in the Spotlight Team's approach, none of the news articles published
in the Globe emphasized that sexually abusive
priests sometimes prey on girls. However, in a March 4
report,
Vatican Stance on Gay Clergy Criticized, religion writer
Michael Paulson notes:
"Although
scholars have established no connection between homosexuality
and pedophilia, the Vatican's [anti-homosexual] comments were
apparently provoked by the fact that many of the victims of
clergy abuse in Boston, as elsewhere, have been adolescent
boys, and not the prepubescent children who are victimized by
the standard pedophile."
In addition, Paulson quotes David Finklehor,
director of the Crimes
Against Children Research Center at the University of New
Hampshire, "'There
is no research that indicates that a person who says he is
gay, or who is sexually attracted to an adult person of the
same gender, is more likely to be sexually interested in
children.'' Paulson's article concludes with a quote
from David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors
Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP):
The fact that there seem to be a
disproportionately higher number of gays in the priesthood -
I don't think it has a direct relevance to the pedophilia
problem,'' he said. ''The relevance of gay priests is
somewhat like the relevance of celibacy in that both
contribute to a culture of secrecy and that culture enables
abuse to go undetected. But celibacy doesn't make one molest
kids, and neither does one's sexual orientation."
Paulson fails to include a salient fact that is extremely hard to miss
in this context, which is that nearly half of the members of
Clohessy's organization are female victims of clergy sexual abuse.
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