Running on Empty: NY Times Editorial Now Calls for the Catholic Church to Be Bankrupted

By Dave Pierre
Themediareport
May 8, 2012

http://www.themediareport.com/2012/05/08/new-york-times-wants-catholic-church-bankrupt/

Andrew Rosenthal

They are at it again.

The Grey Lady just published another editorial on Sunday on its favorite topic: sex abuse in the Catholic Church from decades ago. This time the Times praises the state of Hawaii for passing a law to lift the statute of limitations for two years to file stale sex abuse claims and then lobbies Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York to do the same in an attempt to bankrupt the Catholic Church in New York.

The sex abuse story has been an obsession at the Times for a decade now. But in those ten years, the Church has radically reformed its polices requiring prompt reporting and annual audits while contemporaneous abuse claims have now fallen to near zero; abuse victims have already filed scores of often questionable lawsuits collecting billions in judgments; half of the accused priests have already died; a vast industry of wealthy contingency lawyers and professional victim's groups have emerged who heavily advertise for still more victims; and, indeed several dioceses have already been forced to file for bankruptcy protection amid the flood of claims.

So the simple, if sometimes unpopular, truth is that the problem of sex abuse in the Catholic Church has already been solved.

Finding a new angle

But since the Times isn't really as much concerned with the sexual abuse of children as it is with finding an issue with which to bully the Catholic Church into changing its doctrines with respect to sex and gender, the Times has got to keep the sex abuse issue alive somehow – anyhow – or else it loses its rhetorical cudgel to attack the Church.

Thus in its latest editorial the Times now pushes for a proposed law in New York that would abolish decades of established law and lift the statute of limitations for abuse claims for a set period – a so-called "window statue" – so that contingency lawyers could now bring 50-, 60-year, or even older abuse claims in order to bankrupt the Catholic Church in New York. And, indeed, in left-leaning states where window statutes have already been enacted, such as California, Oregon and Delaware, they have directly led to dioceses being forced to file for bankruptcy.

Selective facts

In promoting these statutes, however, the Times never mentions the rank unfairness of forcing defendants to defend decades-old claims after witnesses have died, memories have faded, and evidence has been lost. Indeed, permitting the filing of lawsuits which, because of the passage of time, results in the defendants being unable to effectively defend themselves amounts to nothing short of extortion which is why statutes of limitation exist in the first place.

Nor does the Times ever mention in its editorial that these statutes never apply to public schools where sex abuse is estimated to have occurred at a rate more than 100 times that of the Catholic Church. And that these window statues don't apply to the Times' beloved government schools is perfect evidence itself that the Times real agenda here is not the protection of children but simply an assault upon the Catholic Church.

The Constitution wisely prohibits ex post facto criminal laws and these reckless window statutes with respect to abuse in civil law are simply unprecedented in scope modern American legal history. Imagine the howls of protest from the Times if legislatures were to suddenly lift the statutes of limitation on defamation permitting claimants to sue the Times over matters it published 50 or 60 years ago!

Coming clean

In its editorial, the Times even admits that its real target in all of this is the Catholic Church, decrying of the Hawaii legislation that "[t]he law's leading opponent was the Roman Catholic Church, which has been working hard to defeat statute of limitations reform across the country." The Times then bemoans that the Church stopped a recent proposed window statue from passage in Pennsylvania. As always, it is not really about sex abuse but about the Times hating on the Catholic Church.

As the story of sex abuse in the Catholic Church fades into the past, look for more editorials like this from the Times promoting the passage of window statues as it desperately struggles to keep this old story alive and as it seeks any means at its disposal to destroy its archnemesis: the Catholic Church.