Sunday 4 April 2010

Distortions used to push a point of view

I am an occasional reader of this web site www.mercatornet.com It is, as a brief perusal of contents will show, a right wing opinion site. It is basically anti women's rights, pro life, anti choice and it seems pro Roman Catholic because the Pope supports the things they believe in. Which leaves them in something of a quandary over the current paedophile revelations.

While I agree that some of the media coverage of the scandal is sensationalist I really do not think it is widespread conspiracy to discredit the Roman Catholic Church because it supports the family and marriage and is anti-abortion.

"Only the voice of the Pope and the Church is being raised to defend life and the family. The reading of certain articles in the media shows that very powerful lobby groups are seeking to silence this voice with the worst possible defamation . . . '

When you consider that the author of this article is an Italian Sociologist of religion you can see where he is coming from. He uses statistics to try and show that the cases involving priests frequently involve children over the age of 16 - so that isn't paedophilia. He glosses over this even though it is a serious breach of trust which could scar young people for life, because, he says, it is less serious than paedophilia.

He also goes on to argue that as there are far more - not sure where his figures come from - cases in protestant denominations. So that's all right then and it's all been greatly exaggerated and is all designed to silence this voice crying in the wilderness against immorality. Or even if it isn't exaggerated all the good things the Catholic Church believes in should more than make up for a few rotten apples - which you get in any walk of life.

The title of the piece is 'Moral Panic Flares Again' and it was posted on 3 April 2010. It is one of the most interesting - and distasteful - pieces of moral wriggling on the point of a dilemma that I've seen for a long time.

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