Catholic Periodicals Laud Church Scandal Coverage

This is the dark night of American Catholicism’s communal soul.

For months, each day’s news has brought more accusations of children sexually abused by priests, of deceit and dereliction by their episcopal superiors; more lawsuits filed; more settlements reached; more judgments recorded.

No other American denomination ever has been subjected to the sort of broad, intense and sustained news coverage the Roman Catholic Church has received since the current scandal first came to light in the archdiocese of Boston.

And the coverage has had its consequences: Since January, at least 177 priests accused of molesting children have resigned or been removed from their ministries.

In conversations this week, the editors of the country’s three leading Catholic publications--the National Catholic Reporter; Commonweal, a biweekly journal of opinion edited by laypeople; and America, the U.S. Jesuits’ weekly magazine for “thinking Catholics”--agreed that the secular print media have done a good job covering the scandal.

But is there too much coverage?

“I don’t think there can be too much, as long as there is one child in danger,” said Father Thomas Reese, editor of America.

Margaret O’Brien Steinfels, who edits Commonweal, said “the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times have done a very good and balanced job, and I think the Boston Globe has done what it had to do. The story there is of enormous importance.” But, she said, newspaper editors must continuously ask themselves “whether this is a story they’re reporting or one that they’re driving.”

“So far, though, I don’t think there have been any egregious errors,” she said.

Tom Roberts edits the National Catholic Reporter, a lay weekly newspaper. “We’ve been reporting on this problem for 17 years,” he said, “but the story never took off nationally until papers like the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times got involved. I’ve seen some great reporting since then, and it shows the effect the American press can have when it mobilizes itself in a responsible way around an important issue. Frankly, I’m glad. The most important thing is to get at the truth, even though it’s tough to take because it concerns something you love.”

Roberts singles out the Globe and its editor, Marty Baron, for particular praise. “Boston was a turning point in three ways,” he said. “First, because the story broke under the white hot light of East Coast media coverage; second, because it implicated Cardinal [Bernard] Law, who is a major player in the church, a kingmaker of other bishops and very well connected in Rome. But what really made the difference was that Baron came in as editor of the Globe and asked his reporters a fundamental question: ‘What do you need to push this story forward?’ They said they needed documents unsealed, and he saw that his paper went to court and got them unsealed.

“You can’t overstate the importance of that. When Catholics finally got a look at the unedited Bernard Law, it set their teeth on edge. Catholics understand individual failure, particularly in sexual matters. They’re able to forgive individuals enormous sins. But when they see official cover-up and the way the victims have been treated, it makes their blood boil.”

Roberts also believes reporter David Briggs of the Cleveland Plain Dealer deserves credit for “doing a superb job of bringing the problem to light in that diocese with the same sort of coverage that exposes the church’s abusive countersuits and badgering of victims. It’s an example of the church’s culture being explored as we always wished it would be.”

Steinfels believes the major newspapers have been somewhat late in engaging “the issue of what I would call abuse chasers, the lawyers making a specialty of this. These lawyers are a very important feature of this story and, I think, will be increasingly so. But over time, the newspapers have covered what was missing in the beginning from their reporting.”

“Look,” said America’s Reese, “the problem is that what has happened is awful. Obviously not all priests are pedophiles, and some people in the church feel that the way headlines and words get thrown together gives that impression. Frankly, I think the problem is so serious that many people inside the church had to be hit over the head with a 2-by-4 before they woke up and began to deal with it.”

Where would the Catholic editors like to see the story go from here?

Steinfels and Reese would like to see a more sustained media focus on the problem of child abuse. “As a society, we don’t fully have our arms around this problem,” Commonweal’s Steinfels said.

“If I were advising newspaper editors right now,” said America’s Reese, “I would say it’s time to expand the story beyond the Catholic clergy. In every American city, tens of thousands of children are abused each year, and the press must speak up as strongly for them as it is doing now. I think this is where the church should move also. It should do penance for what has occurred by putting the full power and weight of the Catholic Church to work dealing with sex abuse more generally,” Reese said. “When you see how underfinanced child protective services are in this country, it’s a scandal. We all need to take this American crisis more seriously and do something about it. I think the church should take a leadership role in this to make up for all the damage it has permitted to be done.”