UNITED STATES
WWNO
By Edward Schumacher-Matos
A Web version of a recent report by Barbara Bradley Hagerty about the Philadelphia sex abuse trial of a Catholic monsignor and a priest prompted the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights to accuse NPR of taking a “bigoted swipe” against priests.
The league took offense over a phrase in Hagerty’s online report—not included in her on-air version—in which she said of the priest, James Brennan, that he was “accused of trying to rape a minor, which is not that unusual.”
Hagerty contacted me even before the league’s statement and a number of other listener complaints came pouring in to me. She said that the offending phrase of “which is not that unusual” was “inartfully written” and wished she could take it back. It comes across as saying that attempted rape of minors by priests is not unusual, when what she meant was that it was the trials of priests for alleged sexual abuse that are not so unusual, she told me.
Hagerty said that she was trying to draw a distinction between the trial of the priest for attempted rape and the trial of the monsignor, William Lynn, for failing to protect children from predator priests while he was a senior official in the Philadelphia archdiocese. This is the first trial of a church official for re-assigning a priest to parish work even after the priest had been accused of child predations.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.