UNITED STATES
Anti-Catholic League
By David Fortwengler
Let’s get rid of some myths. The Catholic League is not a civil rights organization as they claim. The Catholic League does not “defend the right of Catholics to participate in American public life without defamation or discrimination” as they claim.
That is because there is no discrimination of Catholics to participate in public life. The two vice-presidential candidates are Catholic, six Supreme Court justices are Catholic, dozens of U.S Representatives and Senators are Catholic (including the Speaker of the House who is third in line to the Presidency), and thousands of other elected officials across this country are Catholic. If Cardinal Dolan or Bill Donohue want to run for office they are welcome to try.
When Donohue and his league of misguided membership refer to defamation and discrimination what they really mean is some people disagree with them. They hate that.
With that being said, the least of my problems are the fabricated rants of a delusional organization and their bombastic leader. My problem is the deliberate pain he inflicts on survivors of sex crimes committed when they were minors, including me. Donohue is free to manipulate his own mind when it comes to portraying the Catholic Church as a victim of an anti-Catholic conspiracy regarding the sex abuse scandal. But when he LIES about the facts he offends and rightly outrages all who don’t practice his form of mental gymnastics.
Today Donohue published his response to yesterday’s conviction of Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn for failing to report suspicion of child sexual abuse. In Bill’s press release titled “Assessing Bishop Finn’s Guilt” he concludes the “condemnations targeting Bishop Finn to be as unfair as they are contrived.” Why would it be unfair to be disgusted and outraged at the actions of Bishop Finn? He was not targeted, he was convicted. The facts weren’t contrived, they were stipulated to by Finn’s own attorney’s. (paid for by the fine catholics of Kansas City)
I will now take a deep breath and detail the absolute, dangerous, and hurtful LIES Donohue spews in release. His comments are in blue and my response follows in black.
The case did not involve child sexual abuse—no child was ever abused, or touched, in any way by Father Sean Ratigan. Nor did this case involve child pornography.
Father Shawn Ratigan has been convicted of possessing and producing child pornography which was on the computer that Bishop Finn was aware of. According to the stipulation of facts when a computer technician examining Ratigan’s computer on December 16, 2010 discovered alarming pictures, they included close up photos of a little girls naked vagina. The series of eight photos showed the girl’s panties being moved aside in each picture. The girl was estimated by police to be three or four years old. Does Donohue think she moved the panties herself to give Ratigan a better shot?
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