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Catholic League: Boston Globe Refuses to Name Its Own Abusers
By Michael W. Chapman
The Boston Globe, which has turned stories about child sexual abuse by Catholic priests into a cottage industry, refuses to publish the names of its own staff members who have been charged with sexual harassment, according to Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. "Sexual abuse is still going on at the Globe," Donohue wrote in a Dec. 18 press release. "In March, a young woman employee filed a complaint against a male journalist with human resources. She said he propositioned her to have sex with his wife. But nothing came of it." "One year ago, the same man propositioned her to have sex with him," reported Donohue. "He was allowed to stay on the job, until, that is, more accusations were made against him from outside the office." "So who is he? The Globe refuses to say," states Donohue. "They declared this to be a 'confidential personnel matter.' Indeed, they are proud of covering up for the predator." "Globe editor Brian McGrory says he knows he will be accused of hypocrisy, but says, 'I can live with that far more easily than I can live with the thought of sacrificing our values to slake the thirst of this moment." wrote Donohue. He continued, "What are those company values, Mr. McGrory? Honesty? Consistency? Fairness? Transparency? Not on your life. What about fidelity to the law? Under Massachusetts law, sexual harassment in the workplace covers both verbal and physical conduct. The law explicitly says that sexual advances andrequests for sexual favors constitute sexual harassment." "There is no reason to think that this kind of cover-up isn't going on at other media outlets (predators were known to senior employees at NPR and the New York Times and nothing was done about it)," said Donohue. "What makes the Globe worse is that it refuses to hold itself to the same standard it insists that the Catholic Church must respect." "To top things off, sexual harassment in the workplace is still going on, and its boss is bragging how confidentiality rights matter more than full disclosure," he said. Commenting further on the Boston Globe's sexual harassment hypocrisy, Donohue states that in 2002 the investigative staff of the Globe published a book, Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church. In the book's foreword, Ben Bradlee Jr. complained that the Boston archdiocese settled claims of priestly sexual abuse "in private, with no public record." Donohue asked, "Is that not what McGrory is now counseling—even touting—as the proper response to his miscreant employees?" Bradlee also praised the Globe's editor, Martin Baron, for challenging a judge's confidentiality order "on the grounds that the public interest in unsealing documents [of offending priests] outweighed the privacy concerns of the litigants." But apparently that standard does not apply to the Boston Globe itself. "The editorial page of the Boston Globe has been relentless in calling out the Catholic Church for its reluctance to name the names of priests who have been disciplined for sexual abuse, even though it now insists it has no obligation to name the names of its employees who have been disciplined for such offenses," said Donohue. "If the Boston Globe had any integrity, it would not have one standard for itself and one for the Catholic Church," he said. "But it plainly does, and that is why its credibility, at least on this matter, is shot." "We need Hollywood to do a 'Spotlight' film on the corruption within the Boston Globe," said Donohue. "But that is not likely to happen: studio moguls, actors, and entertainers—most of whom feel about the Catholic Church the way the Globe does—are too embroiled in sexual abuse scandals of their own."
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