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  ‘Orange County Register Slanders Priests’

The Orange County Register
March 18, 2010

http://taxdollars.freedomblogging.com/2010/03/18/orange-county-register-slanders-priests/53527/

We apparently hit a raw nerve when we used an illustration of a faceless clergyman on our post entitled, “Think you can spot the sex offender in the crowd?”

The post uses a true/false quiz from the California Attorney General to make some important points about sex abusers - particularly that abusers are someone the victim knows and trusts the overwhelming majority of the time.

The first line of our post is “You just never know.” And given that clergymen are among the most trusted members of society – and that they have been embroiled in myriad sex scandals as of late, particularly in the Catholic Church (which has paid out more than $1.5 billion to settle sex abuse complaints, of which the Diocese of Orange alone paid more than $100 million), this did not seem like much of a stretch to us at The Watchdog.

However, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights in New York City was outraged. An email to Register publisher Terry Horne, titled, ”ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER SLANDERS PRIESTS” (full text of the complaint is below), says this:

“The newspaper is a disgrace…. When the Danish cartoon controversy exploded in 2006, the Orange County Register refused to offend Muslims by printing the depictions of Muhammad. Ken Brusic, the editor, explained the decision by saying that to publish the cartoons the newspaper ‘would needlessly offend many in our community and would add little to the debate.’ But offending Catholics, especially Catholic priests, is perfectly legitimate.”

After some spirited debate, Brusic made the decision to take the illustration down. It has been replaced with a photo of a playground. For the record, The Watchdog certainly did not mean to suggest that all clergymen are abusers.

See the full complaint below. What do you think? We’d love to hear your comments.

ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER SLANDERS PRIESTS

On the blog site of yesterday’s Orange County Register was a series of questions and answers on the subject of sexual abuse. At the top, under the headline question, “Think you can spot the sex offender in the crowd?”, was a silhouette of a priest: faceless, the silhouette was clearly a male wearing a priest’s collar and black jacket. None of the questions or answers mentioned anything about a priest, or about religion in general. This entry is still posted today on the blog of the Santa Ana, California newspaper.

Commenting on this is Catholic League president Bill Donohue:

The newspaper is a disgrace. By slandering tens of thousands of Catholic priests all across the nation, the Orange County Register has carved out a special place for itself in the annals of journalism.

When the Danish cartoon controversy exploded in 2006, the Orange County Register refused to offend Muslims by printing the depictions of Muhammad. Ken Brusic, the editor, explained the decision by saying that to publish the cartoons the newspaper “would needlessly offend many in our community and would add little to the debate.” But offending Catholics, especially Catholic priests, is perfectly legitimate.

Nothing short of an immediate apology will suffice, and it should come from the top, Terry Horne, president and publisher.

 
 

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