A rally to drive out Newark Archbishop Myers is a bust.
Recent reporting from the New Jersey Star-Ledger about Newark Archbishop John J. Myers and his handling of a now-deceased priest in the Diocese of Peoria back in the 1990s would have you believe that New Jersey Catholics are rabidly up in arms to the point that they are fervently seeking Myers' removal.
However, the meager gathering for an August 20, 2013, rally outside Newark's archdiocesan headquarters, apparently organized by local gadfly/ex-priest/"Catholic Whistleblower" Robert Hoatson, suggests that anger against Archbishop Myers has barely extended beyond the editorial rooms of the Star-Ledger and the basements of the usual Church cranks, such as Hoatson.
A whopping three people showed up for the rally last week seeking the prelate's resignation.
New Jersey Star-Ledger arrives for support
Yet the paltry turnout did not halt New Jersey Star-Ledger ace reporter Mark Mueller from eagerly arriving on the scene to work the crowd of three and lend his tacit support to the cause.
Dogged NJ Star-Ledger reporter Mark Mueller (blue shirt) pushes through the crowd for an interview.
Moments later, Mueller was even joined by a cameraman from local community television's "NJ Today," who dutifully recorded the historic event:
A "NJ Today" cameraman gives angry ex-priest Bob Hoatson (brown pants)
media exposure for the big event.
After Mueller escaped the throng, and the cameraman somehow managed his departure from the frenzy, well … the excitement finally subsided.
Time to order a pizza? A busted rally finally draws to a close.
Yes, because "The Media Report" is so credible. If you wish to vent your lies and hate, get on twitter. You are pathetic, laughing at childhoods taken, lives ruined forever and THEN you have the nerve to bad talk the Star-Ledger? ATLEAST IT'S A REAL NEWS SOURCE. By the way 100's of other outlets have covered it as well.
That's not fair. The Media Report never laughs at childhoods taken or lives ruined forever. Your comment makes you just as bad in God's eyes as the pedophile priests and bishops who didn't stop them.
You don't actually read the posts do you?
The only thing being laughed at is an obsessed, unhinged news staff heaping personnel resources on a nonevent that they desperately hoped could happened. Ha, ha. And do you actually fancy that they care about victiims of abuse? If they did, they would focus their spotlight on the people who engage in it, not on an archbishop who has never been accused but might have deep pockets nontheless. Effectively shills for Jeff Anderson, they got caught making fools of themselves by a camera that was apparently trained on them from inside the archbishop's chancery. Now that's funny.
For battle come to me!!!!!!
Archbishop Myers IS a disgrace and should resign ASAP. Read the following. At least some church people are willing to speak out.
From Sunday's edition of The Record:
In response to "Archbishop Myers blames his critics," (8/21/2013):
Archbishop John J. Myers of Newark, NJ has failed in his fundamental responsibility to protect the most vulnerable among us — the children and when called to account for his failures he lashes out at everyone and everything in sight including the media, politicians, the violated children and their families.
This is all so familiar and all so heartbreaking.
The same wailing continues to be heard from too many bishops ever since Cardinal Bernard Law, the former archbishop of Boston, MA, called down the wrath of God upon the Boston Globe newspaper.
Even though the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops mandated accountability and transparency in 2002 it remains elusive. So much for their promises.
Have any of the U.S. bishops spoken out against these rants by Myers? Have any of them dared to tell Myers to his face that the time has come for him to resign as Archbishop of Newark?
Archbishop John J. Myers is a disgrace to the office he holds and an embarrassment to the People of God.
The damage he continues to inflict on those violated, their families and their supporters is beyond measure.
Has the man no fear of God?
Sister Maureen Paul Turlish
Advocate for Victim/Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse & Legislative Reform
Founding member of Catholic Whistleblowers.org
You quote Turlsih as an authoirty?
Oh yeah, who is anyone to "bad talk" such an honorable publication as the lib-loving Star-Hedger, who had to recently be shamed into correcting their slimey [dishonest] hit-piece against Myers?
One would hope that they could perhaps spare a reporter or two to cover the genesis of WWIII being initiated by their idol, Obama (well, if they can't spare a minute from their non-stop pounding of Christie and the Catholic Church).
The only lies and hate on TMR is that which is provided by the 'drive-by' antiCatholic bigots and their media lackeys and sycophants.
You'll notice, Bill, that The Star-Ledger didn't write a story about this get-together. I was there in case more people showed up, not to 'work the crowd' or lend 'tacit support.' When it became clear it was just a few people, I left. Interesting, though, that when The Star-Ledger takes pictures, we do so in the open, not hiding in the Archdiocesan office, from which these pictures were obviously taken. I'm transparent about everything I do. Maybe you should take a lesson.
It only took one man to change the course of religious history. Jesus had to do it on his own, for the most part, and look what he accomplished. Imagine if he had two others with him at all times? Three of us accomplished more that day than all the picture takers from the chancery's upper floors.
Oh yes everything about reporters–including their biases–is transparent and above board.
As if….
The fact that only three people attended is significant. It shows a lack of popular support for this particular cause. The fact that you failed to publish a story on the clear lack of support indicates you're not so "transparent" with your readers after all.
In the face of all the self-serving calls for Myers to "resign," there appears to be no traction among the Catholic populace to see this happen. Can't get anyone to even turn out for a "rally" on a nice sunny day. That is the story that the Star-Ledger came nose-to-nose with at the chancery, then pretended it was "not newsworthy." In fact, there was big news about Myers' status with his flock. Those Pulitzer hopes are looking dimmer and dimmer.
Thank you for continuing to uncover and speak the truth when emotions and biases have muddied it considerably!!
Deflections! Anti Catholicism is the weakest deflection in the book. Thank God for Bob Hoatson for exposing McCarrick Egan Myers and Hubbard. Gay American Bishops are notoriously indiscreet, messy, and unethical. Myers put an alleged predator into my highschool and in so doing endangered the welfare of thousands of children.
We can see through the poorly veiled and thought out rhetorical gestures and deflections. Myers is a messy queen who needs to go.
Where is the support? There are a hundred thousand victims nationwide, what happened to the network? http://cityofangels2.blogspot.com tells my theory of why no one is at this event. The crime victims in this issue were sabotaged from the mid-1980s on.
If there’s one thing I like to have a good laugh at, it’s anti-Catholic bigots. And, man, did this make me laugh!
The comments are also hilarious. Where to start? First, M Monaghan keeps the comedic theme going by announcing that the Star-Fudger is a “real news source.” He advises us that “100’s of other outlets” have covered the white hot story. Curious to witness this media frenzy, I performed an internet search. Oh dear, Monaghan. Oh, dear. But, hey, at least you can console yourself with the fact that your favorite manifesto rag got a world exclusive.
Or could have done – had they actually reported on the “story.” You see, Monaghan, it’s nowhere to be found on their site, and Mueller advises us that the Fudger didn’t write about it. So I’m a bit confused when you say that 100s – or was it 1,000s? – of other outlets covered the story “as well.” As well as who? I hate to disillusion you, but it’s not even on SNAP’s website. And you know how desperate they are for a story. Any story.
As for Mueller, who’s Bill? I think you may have that name wrong. Don’t worry, though – I know how it is with you Fudger writers. Names? Places? Facts? Who cares, as long as you can concoct a scandalous story that’ll keep the Pavlovian punters slobbering and the circulation figures in double digits. By the way, to understand what professional reporting looks like I suggest you visit bigtrial.net
Hoaty? Is that you again, my old fruit bat? Hold it, old boy – “…all the picture takers” in the chancery’s upper floors? I fear it was but one – but I do appreciate the irresistible image of more people photographing the rally than attending it. You old so-and-so, you haven’t lost your sense of humor, have you?
Ms Henry! “..some church people” are willing to speak out? Members of Catholic Whistleblowers.org – church people?? Please! The gambit used by the anti-Catholic bigots of CW, SNAP, etc of claiming to be “Catholics” has worn a bit thin. Nobody takes them seriously anymore. The claim doesn’t lend weight to their angry rants – just ridicule. How assiduously you post on any matter related to any accusation, anywhere, by anyone, against the clergy. Yet how quiet you are on the huge miscarriage of justice that is playing out in your own archdiocese of Philadelphia, with yet more innocent Catholics being imprisoned on the word of liars and false accusers.
Ah, Ms Ebeling, how desperate you sound. It’s all falling apart at the seams, isn’t it? The Church has long ago put its house in order. People are no longer interested in historical cases being regurgitated by the gutter rags like the New York Times and the Star-Fudger for the 100th time. They have become weary and embarrassed by the false accusers, corrupt contingency attorneys, mendacious “victims groups”, witch hunts, kangaroo courts and abuses of justice. The game’s up.
Do let us know when the next rally is planned for, though. Why, if you can muster more than 5 people you may even get a front page splash at the Fudger.
There can't be hundreds of thousands of false cases, all in different cities, reporting the exact same pattern of crime by the bishops. False accusers are a tiny minority of the cases, read bishop accountability and go through the database, and you realize it. As for me sounding desperate, that is exactly how the sabotage of survivors was set up to play out. What happened to me proves the church orchestrated this entire response to the pedophile priest discovery, including plaintiff attorneys dominating the show and the "survivor network" that keeps us separate, since the mid-1980s.
Actually, all they needed was two. Then they could use the headline "Victims Protest Bishop" and get away with it.
Sounding like the problem with the "whistleblowers" and their media pitbulls that are infesting TMR recently is with those 'messy queens' and 'indiscreet gays' – why all the hatred directed against Catholics? Take your beefs to the homosexual community, from which the sexual abuse crimes against minors largely eminates.
[edited by moderator]
What an amazing coincidence: at last some actual photographic evidence of the Abuseniks in action, and suddenly this site is visited by a dozen or so. What a coincidence.
And yet almost none of them actually addresses – faces up to – the emptiness in the photos right before our eyes. Except for one who gives a stab at explaining the emptiness by claiming that somehow “the crime victims were sabotaged since the 1980s on”. In other words, ignore the immediate reality of the photos and look at (her version of) The Big Picture.
And then somebody using the same name as (and may actually be) the reporter in the photos, who says – in a somewhat offended tone – that he left once it became clear that there weren’t going to be many people at this news event. But that fact should have been clear from even a block away. Still, he was given an assignment and had to put in his appearance as an agent of the paper that employs him and he can’t be faulted for wanting to keep his job; I certainly don’t fault him on that score.
But the “hidden photos” bit goes over the top. He and the ‘event’ were on a public street and in full view. The photos were taken not from any sort of “hidden” camera(s) but simply be somebody standing at a window – of the building, perhaps, in which were the objects targeted by the event in the first place. What’s the beef here? If the photos were taken by AOP staffers then they were well within their rights and they were also wise in not going outside and making a scene: a ‘scene’ after all, would play right into the hands of the Playbook: it would have provided an opportunity for somebody out on the street to don a Wig and ‘create a scene’, which would then have provided a nifty opportunity to distract from the vivid reality that there was almost nobody there in the first place.
Another commenter tries to distract from the reality in the photos by quoting Sr. Turlish, one of the founding members of the new Whistleblower organization (created, as I have opined recently, in order to put some daylight between the now-wobbly SNAP front organization and the various interests that have always been behind the Stampede). But the point of this TMR article is not the overall view of the Whistleblower organization. Rather, it is the stunning actuality of the photos and what flows from them. Turlish here is a distraction, and certainly irrelevant to the article.
Also, I note that use of Turlish when she is referred to as “some church people”. This is a media gambit that goes back to my extended comments on the Anderson Axis (of media and tort attorneys): create a conflict by finding somebody or anybody on ‘the other side’ of the controversy. In this human world of ours, there will always be “some” people on the other side of anything and everything. This “some” gambit makes it seem as if wherever there are “some … people” on the other side of any thought or idea or position, then there is a solid and well-founded and substantive controversy worthy of serious public attention (which attention must be manipulated to avoid any public consideration or assessment or deliberation that might go in the ‘wrong’ direction).
We are told that TMR is not a credible news source. Yet here we have actual photographs (and not photo-shopped) of a public happening. What is not credible here? (Answer: What is really going on with this objection is that TMR has not put up “correct” information and therefore – in the eyes of the Abuseniks – the information must not be believed; who ya gonna believe – the Abuseniks or your own lying eyes? That sort of thing.) And furthermore, TMR has offered the opportunity to see ‘news’ and deliberation that nobody is going to get from allies participating up to their elbows in the Anderson Axis.
Another comment asserts – apropos of nothing in the photos, to say the least – that TMR “laughs at childhoods taken or lives ruined forever”. If any commenter can substantiate that accusation (with accurate quotes) then let them put that material up here. Indeed, the record here shows that the only laffs and yuks have come from assorted Abusenik commenters looking to distract the readership from the issues by cheap shots and adolescent verbal fireworks.
Another comment insists that “we can see through the poorly veiled and thought out rhetorical gestures and deflections”. That’s a nice word, “deflections” – but it’s only a more polished way of saying ‘distractions’ and on this site the ‘distractions’ have come from the Abusenik Playbook. Unless you want to claim that any deliberation, analysis, questioning, or thinking is a ‘distraction’ or a “deflection” unless it goes in the direction the Abuseniks want it to go. (And – but of course – with a shrieking obviousness it is this “deflection” assertion itself which is clearly seeking to ‘deflect’ readers’ attention from considering the photographs themselves. And so: Yes, “we can see through the poorly veiled and thought out rhetorical gestures and deflections” here.
And then we are reminded that it only took Jesus and a few others to “change history”. Yes, in about three years Jesus accomplished something amazing indeed. But it’s been three decades now, and what is now happening – finally – is that the Oz-like ‘reality’ of the Abusenik Stampede is starting to show its creaking machinery that makes smoke and is designed to seem much much larger and more powerful (and truthful) than it actually is.
Some readers may recall that January, 2012 SNAP nation-wide (or world-wide) tenth anniversary of the initiation of the Anderson Axis phase in which the Boston Globe (for its own purposes) started up its own Phase of the Stampede: there were less than two hundred persons, including staffers, speakers, and ancillary others, leaving not much more than one hundred actual attendees. And the Globe’s photograph of the inevitable Sunday demonstration at the Cathedral was carefully staged as a ludicrous close-up of a small gaggle with their signs and placards; it could have been a small gaggle of public demonstrators anywhere on a sidewalk – the photo was so closely focused on them to make them look as numerous as possible and to avoid having any building – the Cathedral itself perhaps? – in the shot; that focus would have enabled readers to actually see the size (or non-size) of the SNAP nationwide or worldwide demonstration; if you didn’t read the photo’s explanatory caption you wouldn’t have been able to figure out what was going on at all.
My take on this sudden spate of interest in TMR: this bunch was mustered off-stage to come out of the woodwork in order to do whatever they could to distract from the photos themselves and whatever discussion might flow from those photos. And what we see in this spate of comments is all that they could do.
I have said this before: minus the inflationary effects of the Anderson Axis strategy and the internet it is quite possible that the Abuseniks have never been a large presence at all. And this is over and above the fact that whenever we have had a chance to look at cases or documents that have been touted as somehow ‘proving’ whatever point they claimed, we have instead discovered – in that curiously consistent Oz-like way – far far less than was asserted and claimed.
Mark, Why did the Star-Ledger send someone over to cover the protest?
Julie, I received a news release saying there would be a protest outside the Archdiocesan offices. We get releases on all kinds of topics all the time. Given that I've been writing about the Archdiocese, I thought it would be prudent to check it out.
Good question. Here in Philadelphia, the local news people don't bother anymore when they receive notice of a little protest (very few go and there is no point to it) at the Archdiocesan building. I have 2 good friends and a relative who work for 3 different stations. The feeling is that the news story has long been over..
Mark Mueller, waiting for your answer to Julie's question. It may provide some illumination as to how the Star-Fudger allocates its resources, to what agenda/purpose, and, by extrapolation, why it is going out of business.
In regard to commenter Ebeling’s of 958AM:
First, I don’t see where she gets “hundreds of thousands” of cases, let alone false cases. The John Jay Reports tallied up all the formal allegations and they are somewhere between 10-11 thousand . So right off the bat we are dealing with some form of exaggeration here – though she is welcome to explain her calculations.
So then her assertion that “there can’t be hundreds of thousands of false cases” is thrown awry. But in that regard we are also faced with the reasonable probability of a very large number of false claims in light of a) the Anderson Axis strategy with its serious derangement of media and perhaps even attorney integrity – all of which contributed to the Stampeding of public perception and opinion; b) the weakening of jurisprudential and evidentiary principles; c) the introduction of the possibility of huge payouts if allegations are successful; d) the Anderson ‘bundling’ strategy of presenting many-Plaintiff lawsuits such that no organization could contest each allegation in court without spending huge sums; e) to which must be added not only the skewing of evidentiary principles and the skewing of media ‘reporting’ of those ‘law office histories’ but also i) the decease of many of the accused and ii) the reigning Victimist mantras that ii) to doubt or question or even examine an allegant’s claim is tantamount to ‘re-victimzing’ a ‘victim’ whose actual victimhood has precisely not been established and iii) the virtual certainty that false-claims will not be prosecuted if exposed because to do so would have a “chilling” effect on any future allegants iv) whose numbers are asserted to be at least 100 times as high as the formally known allegations; f) the tremendously dubious elasticity and vagueness in the definitional content of such terms as ‘abuse’, ‘molesting’, ‘rape’ and so forth; and g) the results of the examination of such claims and documents as we have actually been able to examine (such as the various document-cache releases and the few trials – such as in Philadelphia – that have entered the public record).
How can all of those elements be left-out of any reasonable assessment as to the possible number of false claims?
As far as the widely-dispersed similarity of the (alleged) acts and “crimes”: I mentioned in a comment on the immediately preceding article about the Levack book’s toting-up of all the many ways that the “script” of demonic-possessions was disseminated in Early Modern Europe. And that today’s internet and the sites (Ebeling mentions Bishop-Accountability) and the Anderson Axis of attorneys, media, and ‘law office history’ – all serve precisely the same purpose today: to disseminate the “script” and in great detail, such that claims demonstrate a certain uniformity and similarity.
Indeed, in regard to Bishop-Accountability, the site mimics almost exactly the content of the Early Modern “possession narratives”, wherein those claiming possession related what would become the ‘template’ for all such claims, allegations, and stories. In such a situation, an enterprising potential allegant can go to (or be steered-to) the site in order to glean various bits from previous stories in order to make an allegation conform more suitably and with more ‘detail’ to the now commonly-accepted ‘victimization narrative’. And this dynamic would only intensify if persons discovered already-accused priests and decided to ensure that their own claims followed the pattern already set forth for that individual.
Thus too, I would take issue with commenter Ebeling’s far too easy leaps from small evidence to great and putatively decisive conclusions and thus to sweeping presumptions and assertions. She claims some sort of journalistic or reporting chops but what sort of reportorial skill is this?
Thus whatever “happened to” her is a single instance, of which we have here only her interpretation (and ‘reporting’) of it. But it certainly cannot of itself provide the ‘proof’ that “the church orchestrated this entire response to the pedophile priest” (and I would add: here we go again with that grossly inaccurate but oh-so manipulatively vivid phrase).
But then in that very sentence she veers off onto a new tack in which – as best I can follow here – she impugns “plaintiff attorneys dominating the show” and also the “’survivor network’ that keeps us separate since the mid-1980s”. Is she somehow here putting the plaintiff attorneys (following the Anderson Axis gambit) and the “survivor network” into cahoots with the Church? (And here we go again with that queasy and manipulative appropriation of the Holocaust terminology).
As always, this tack yields the prospect of the Church orchestrating a legal attack upon itself which has cost her over a billion dollars. Rational and reasonable observers are welcome to make of that prospect what they may.
I am reminded of the World War 1 German command that began believing its own domestically-disseminated propaganda about the evil power and competence of the Western Allies and thus frightened itself into actually committing more heinous acts on the illusion that the Allies themselves were bloodthirsty ogres and had to be met with equally bloodthirsty and ogre-ish acts.
And thus The Ball Kept Rolling on.
TMR uses the term "Hilarious" because only three people showed at a rally.
Now only if one person showed up it still gained the attention of TMR to report about it.
…and once again to refresh the memory of TMR, was it not only ONE PERSON who recently in Philadelphia seen to it that the priests and the teacher who abused him and the priest who failed to do his job to protect him from a known animal were sent to prison.
Mr. Bob Hoatson, two thumbs up sir.
Now I would like to step back for one second and this question is directed to Delphin and Julie. You both have stated you recently gave large contributions to your church. My question is to both of you is you are not or will refuse to claim that gift on your taxes correct ?
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are you referring to the one individual whose story changed each time he was asked to state it on the record, whose family is well connected in the Phila. PD and FOP and the DAs political motivation for even trying the case that sent innocent men to prison?
and don't forget to mention that the one person's criminal record of four criminal actions was wiped clean and now ceases to exist for public record. Four cases dismissed for each false story that he told.
Only a leftist bigot would be so rude (the most polite word I can use to describe such an ill-conceived question) as to attempt to indict ones motivation for making any charitable contribution. This recent indictment of intentions is about as valid as the majority of those indictments, from these same sources, that have intentionally attempted to sully our clergy.
The divide between the left and the normal is greater than feared. 'They' actually think that 'we' think and act like 'them'. That is a very scary disconnect with reality being displayed there.
I wonder if such a question would be asked if those donations were going to any leftist organization? I doubt it.
And, they question why we don't trust their claims. Who, in their right mind, would?
So let's take D (for Dip)'s answer, as a yes. She/ it will be writing off her/ it's gift to the wealthiest organzation (bar governments) on this planet.
Kay Ebling is absolutely correct. She should be treated with respect for telling you the truth but your lying can not allow that. You are simply scum.
If you remember when I posted regularly here there were 5 people posting. Now there's a flurry of posters. A miracle or a plan?
As far as the 3 person demo goes. Your trinity is only 3 and look what you believe it did. And Rosa Parks was only one person and she kicked ass.
Don't wet yourself D. I'm not back. Just a drive through. Hold the fries D. You'll need them to live. [edited by moderator]
Not much new in commenter Ecker’s of 454PM. Except that we have now gone from the asserted multitudes of Abuseniks who constitute the majority to – now – the plaint that even “if one person showed up” then it was still a success because TMR still reported it.
Two points:
First, it seems not to have occurred to Ecker that the “report” was prompted by the now-stunningly obvious fact that there aren’t many folks on the bandwagon after all. Apparently, as in Hollywood, Ecker subscribes to the idea that there’s no such thing as bad PR. And yet his Oz is here revealed as a very small thingie indeed. But then, to a greater extent than most might think, the Abuseniks have been in show-biz all along.
Second, this “if only” trope: It has become a familiar bit of the wallpaper in recent decades: “if only just one” … (fill in the blank). But in a large and messy world, there is probably at least “just one” example of anything you could imagine. The question that has occupied me for quite a while on this site is: just how much more than “just one” incident of ‘abuse’ (however defined) has there actually been? Because it certainly seems reasonable and even perhaps probable that while there has been at least one incident of clerical abuse, there has not been the innumerable amount that Abuseniks continue to insist-upon.
Lastly, as to the truly silly bit about tax-deductions … well, it is what it is. But clearly commenter Ecker has not ‘stepped back’ from his usual M.O.
I wonder how giving Delphin and his friends would be if they took away that tax deduction ?
Would they continue to be as loving to their church ?
Ummm..Ecker…What would YOU know about charitable deductions of any kind? First, you atated that you don't work, that you are "retired" (you used the quotes to mean what? it is a pseudo-retirement?) at approximately age 50.. OK, one gets the impression that you are on some kind of government assistance like welfare or disability and would not pay taxes. Maybe you believe that you are truly physically (handicapped) or mentally disabled -like as you once said you scream during the night so much that your poor daughter may need counselling paid for by the archdiocese (what a stretch), because you say you were abused (although you say you were that "raped by a pedophile". You have stated that the term rape is the same as any other abuse-it is all the same to you. (I will find the quote from your frequent outragious comments if I have to).
In any case, please make all necessary corrections to my assumptions about your status in the work force, noting that if you are able to ask questions about others charotable deductions, one can wonder aloud about your paying of taxes.
Furthermore, if not industrious, you do sound a bit self indulgent (even all cock in the hoop-like) as you celebrated with champagne and london broil (not that great a cut) when any development in the Philly trials pleased you with no sense of justice whatsoever Frankly, that sounds a bit sick right there as others have noted as well.
As far as giving to Church, you have no clue, once mentioning that people can put their "$5 and $10 " . When was the last time you gave to any charity? You sound like a moocher to me . Possible, you were that way all of your life and your family was that way too. Again, correct me if I am wrong and that you just don't give because you say you are victim-and that is SINCE you discovered that you were a victim or that you were always a victim and so was your family.
Dennis, I don't put my church contributions on my taxes.
Anybody, in capitalist still-free America (thank God), can hang out their shingle claiming their affiliatation or expertise with an organization or within a particular field (presuming they've been sufficiently trained and licensed – access which is available to all citizens, regardless of leftist rants to the contrary). Yet, the 'Land of Opportunity' is still very much an experiment in terms of beneficial social-cultural construct. I've encountered Australian and British colleagues making comparisons of US culture regarding access of all its' citizenry to self-proclaim "expertise" with other westernized nations that still had a bit of the social class and birthright system dictating that access. The perpetration of fraud upon the citizenry was their overriding concern.
Regarding those that still self-proclaim their "professional" Catholicism, in spite of their clear statements in contradiction of Catholic dogma and doctrine (via the Magisterium), they are the very frauds that our fellow westerners were citing. Just because you say you're Catholic, "Sister" and "Father", doesn't mean that you are. You are wolves in sheeps clothing, and nothing more to us. Drop the vocational-professional title/label affiliations with the Catholic Church, you have lost the right to claim them. No faithful Catholic needs to hear your proselytizing since it clearly eminates from a source other than the Holy Spirit.
It isn't unusual that those whom are frauds in their own person would practice the same fraudulence while in white-hot pursuit of their perceived enemy – the true and faithful priests, religious and faithful congregants of our magnificent Church.
Once again, one of the resident antiCatholic malcontents makes a presumption [out of thin air], and then builds a case around that presumption. I obviously refuse to respond to the probing inquiry, it is no one's business (as well as irrelevent to the topic), as I have clearly stated; suffice to say that my point was, and still is, that the more the insidious enemies of the Church assail Her, the more Her faithful will support Her. Don't worry yourself about my personal finances, the left is far too focused on other peoples money (and abilities, possessions, families, talents, gifts, religion, etc.).
You may chase your little butterfly distraction all by yourself, though, if it pleases you.
But, the story you have built around your assumption (which, again, will be neither confirmed nor denied) is an interesting revelation in how your types think and act as pertains to "your truths": that is to say 'Let's presume something to be true because it fits with our own ideology and then build a case (sans anything even remotely resembling evidence) all around it'.
Sound familiar?
Your diety is invented out of thin air but that 's never stopped your church from literally killing in 'his' ' their' name. Real blood for an imaginary god. Wonderful.
Good post, Delphin. As one of those British (with a healthy dose of Irish!) observers you mention, I could not agree more. So to all the impostors, to the "Sister Spurious" and "Father Frauds" out there, to the dissembling "Catholics" who long ago became unmoored from Catholic theology and sacramental practice, please disabuse yourselves of the notion that your disingenuous claims to "speak as a Catholic" will somehow convince people that you speak from within the Church. You don't. And you can't. And everybody has seen through it. Know why you people are always so angry? Because you realize you need the Church more than the Church needs you. But the Church isn't there to be a crutch for you in your deceitful muckraking. So stop your hypocrisy – either deal with your personal issues and reengage with the true Church or go spew your bile in one of the 30,000+ sects. Oh, and while you're deciding, do take that "Catholic" badge off. It makes you look really silly.
"Where is the support? There are a hundred thousand victims nationwide, what happened to the network?"
Seriously? Did you really think that the gig wouldn't be up sooner or later? Some of you, mostly slimey attorneys, got very wealthy off of the fraud of the century, that which is the Church Abuse Matter, while the rest of you were used like the blow-up dolls that your own wrath, greed, slothfulness, pride, lust, envy and gluttony invited.
You've well-earned your 'keep', such that it is.
Get on your knees and get prone as you beg forgiveness from God for your unholy transgressions against Him and His church.
The correct and holy use of this true servants position will likely be new to most of you, but, in God's great mercy, it's never too late to repent-
Vacation over so soon? What was that reentré….your typical "I'm home, honey" grenade?
"Real blood", and more of it, was spilled for centuries – before, after and totally unrelated to the revelation of our, the One True God. Tell your sob-story (and, oh, what a whopper it is) to the Islamists, Animists, Buddhists, Hindus, Atheists, Pagans, Shintos, Confucianists and all the rest of those unChristian 'peace-loving' people.
And, when you escape with only the skin on your bones, if you're lucky, from that little adventure, go into the average American ghetto/hood and give them a piece of your mind about how it is God that is causing them to kill each other in record-breaking numbers exceeding even the worst of times in US history.
It is perfectly clear which path in life is best for humanity; the one with and to God.
The evidence (still ever-elusive to the antiCatholic crowd) is available for all with eyes to see and ears to hear-
Such understanding from liberal attorneys/"thinkers"/artists. Wonder when their "humanism" will extend to priests?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sex-between-students-and-teachers-should-not-be-a-crime/2013/08/30/dbf7dcca-1107-11e3-b4cb-fd7ce041d814_story.html?hpid=z3
So the god of love's religion slaughtered less people than say paganism? Bravo! And that makes it better? Not to those killedf it doesn't.
How absolutely fortunate that you believe in the "one true god" ( Why not prove it?) while all the other religionists you degrade were unlucky. They were born into the wrong faiths with the wrong gods. (You know they see yours as the false faith. Maybe you should have a "god off"? Winner takes the universe.)
Your god makes it tougher for them because they have to drop their childhood beliefs while you get to carry yours directly to heaven.
Moronic.
[edited by moderator]
Intelligent people are sick to death of fantasy being passed off as truth. All these premises with out a jot, a micro speck, of proof to back you up.
Righty? No, you wrongy.
I am calling on Mark Mueller to resign.
End the suffering.
Mark, OK. Just curious. I work in a newsroom. I can see not wanting to poke the protestors in the eye by pointing out how few of them showed up. If it were the same number who had come to support the archbishop, would you have written the story? And I understand, yes, often it is the squeaky wheels who get the newspaper's attention. SNAP has always counted on that. That and individual reporters' and editors' agendas. Not to say that you, Mark, have an agenda. I was just curious if an editor assigned the story, or what. And yes, people do glom onto the fact that a newspaper looks like it has an anti-Catholic bias, and are then quick to contact the newspaper if they have a beef with the church knowing they'll get support for their own agenda.
I would like to level one criticism of Catholics who do support their bishop, archbishop, the church, etc., so very infrequently use the voice the newspapers give them, and that is the letters to the editor.
Meow.
Mark Mueller: swap out the object of your "jounalistic affection" from Myers to a black or a Muslim subject (or one in the same, if you've got the cojones), let's see how your incredibly bigoted "profiling" story is accepted by the local progressive "masses", then. Oh, blacks and/or Muslims don't offend you say, really? How would you know, you've never looked anywhere but the Catholic Church for offenders.
Take that electron microscope you use on the Church, replace it with some real journalism (actual "work" will be required here) and go elsewhere, anywhere but the Church, where children are at risk – now, today. Find another axe (one that doesn't also feed your insatiable antiCatholic appetite) to grind for awhile, you're boring us and your readership with your unhealthy obsession with the Catholic Church.
Hypocrites, all – both you and your spineless editor.
It's easy to pummel the white Catholic guy, how much safer can a slam piece be…hey, tough guys? OK, maybe hitting an aged, rather uncouth, chubby white 'southern belle' is less risky, but, hey, even that one is blowing up in your true-blue faces.
The days of yellow journalism, as practiced by you and your editor on this issue, and apparently endorsed by Advance Publications, are nearing an end, thank God. If you let your politics/ideology bias your reporting on this issue, what can we trust from you?
Nothing. You have no cred.
Josie,
Such an attack from a follower like yourself. I'm impressed.
I am a firm believer that charity begins at home.
The church I attend now gets what I can afford to give them. Sometimes they get nothing at all because my family comes first. Unlike the catholic church who hands down the belief that you can buy your salvation with God, my church does make you feel that way, and don't dare tell me the catholic church does not make their parishioners feel quilty of doing something wrong if they do not give the suggested amount. I have a recent church bulletin telling people what they NEED to give.
Now it seems you don't believe I am retired at 50. So I want to direct you and anyone else here who wants to put a face with the name to go to http://www.bing.com and enter my name Dennis Ecker. There you will see a photo and next to the photo it states "That's You" click on that photo and you are more than welcome to read the caption.
Why you and everyone else here was sitting in front of a tv set on that day playing Monday morning quarterback, I along with other brother and sisters were doing something that you can only imagine in that little pea brain.
So for now on Miss Josie Bailey you call me Mr. Ecker. I earned it.
Footnote,
Contrary to the the belief by Josie Bailey that all victims/survivors have tattoos or had to do drugs to kill the pain I want to ensure everyone it is false.
The spinster's thinking comes from having a one track mind, and not being educated enough in the subject.
I don't have a belief of anyone's tattoos or doing drugs to avoid pain-where do you get these ides, Dennis? You sure can assure people that it is false. Why? Because you made it up just as you make up a lot of outlandish things to suit your comments, to make some kind of point when there is none to make.
For once, will you please try to use sensible words. I can't be called a spinster if I was married at 23 and have children. You are so goofy.
Where I work, the "newbies" figured out they would get positive feedback from the anti-Catholic managing editor by doing anti-Catholic stories; that's not to say that that is the situation in every newsroom. But really, people go into journalism wanting to do good and make a difference. The Catholic church is a big target, and an easy one, if you ignore all of the safety measures in place.now and focus on old stories, and those stories tend to come to you in the form of agenda. The Associated Press has been complicit in keeping similar stories coming out of protestant churches at the local level by not putting them on the wire. What journalist doesn't want to shine the light on evil happenings? But then again, the media now has become largely mouthpieces for some people. What about abused children in other institutions? I don't know; the media is ignoring them.
Julie, the scandal isn't about the fact that the catholic church has child molestors. It's about what the bosses did about those molestors, i.e. passing them on to molest again; with out protecting the flock. Get it?
BTW, I remember reading a blog post by a bishop somewhere, and a newspaper reporter got into the comment boxes and said that he is the one covering the issue at hand, and that he thinks that the Catholic Church is evil and he is very happy to be able to expose how evil the church is. That one sent chills up my spine. Fair coverage? Nope.
Evil is as evil does, Julie. And giving opportunities for rapists to rape anew the most vulnerable, is doing evil.
In regard to the interesting possibilities raised about journalism and its relationship to faith, I can suggest a look at this very informative and worthwhile article: “Pedagogues, Periodicals, and Paranoia” by Robert L. Jackson. It appeared in the print edition of the academic journal “Social Science and Modern SOCIETY” (caps are in the formatting of the journal’s title), Vol. 45, No. 1, Jan-Feb 2008, pp.21-9. All but the first two pages of the article are now behind an online pay-wall but as it turns out the two specimen pages available (through the link at the end of this comment) are the ones I am using here.
On page 21 in the first column, Jackson refers to the writing of Jeff Sharlet, who – among other things – is an NYU journalism instructor who (in 2008) teaches a course entitled “Journalism Faces Faith”.
Jackson notes and quotes Sharlet’s basic approach: “the ways in which journalism confronts belief and the ways in which it makes the peculiarities of beliefs presentable to public opinion”. Jackson continues: “Indeed, locating and describing peculiar religious people is Jeff Sharlet’s gift”.
Sharlet’s approach is to find the most outré representatives of what we might recall as the Fundamentalist Christian Right (mobilized during the Reagan years in response to the Democrats’ raising-up of what we can call ‘secular liberalism’). Sharlet then interviews them as if they were the mainstream of religious believers (which, of course, they are not) and then contrasts them with the sweet-reason voices of secular liberalism, thereby clearing his path for making the case that the country is under attack by “religion” (while all of his examples are merely of the fundamentalist religious fringes). And thus “journalism” can do its patriotic and philosophical bit for the country by going after “religion” wherever it is found.
Other commenters may be more familiar with what is being taught in J-School these days, but I expect that Sharlet (in 2008 a contributing editor of both Rolling Stone and Harper’s) and the approach he espouses is held in some regard, right up there with the old ‘advocacy journalism’ of the 1960s (whose basic bit is: don’t report ‘facts’ ‘objectively’ – instead, find what you think is the right and good side of the matter and skew all your ‘reporting’ to make sure it supports that ‘side’ and makes ‘the other side’ look as bad as you are sure it essentially and really is).
As with the Law-Schools, I would say that with the professional schools putting out some form of a combined ‘advocacy’ and ‘anti-religious’ approach, then we are going to wind up with some very skewed approaches in some very vital national institutions (law, legislation and politics, and journalism).
It becomes possible – perhaps even probable – that newspaper editors so-inclined can find professional support for skewed ‘reporting’ from their own institutions of higher education and preparation. And thus it factors in with other journalistically-related elements that I have mentioned in earlier comments on this thread. We saw from D’Antonio a while back that the then-new editor of the Boston Globe had his own reasons for wanting to make a splash in the summer of 2001, which led – as we saw – to the Globe’s January 2002 initiation of a “new” phase of the Stampede which was actually just a repeat of what Jeff Anderson had been talking-about and implementing since 1990 or so.
But as with all such gambits – and we have seen a lot of this in the past 45 years or so – it’s a lot easier for “new” and “fresh” “thinking” to tear down the old than it is to come up with a workable replacement. Adolescents are famous for this: easy to mock and make fun of and dismiss and to ‘deconstruct’ the ‘old’ stuff, but not so hot when it comes to constructing a workable replacement and installing it before the culture you’ve just taken your hatchet-to starts to come apart. Unlike replacing vital machinery – especially if you think of planes or ships, you can’t simply take a culture ‘out of service’, shut everything down, and replace the ‘old’ machinery with what you think is much better stuff; what we have been seeing is more akin to trying to replace the engines while the plane is in the air (and full of passengers) or while the ship is out at sea (and full of passengers).
Or – if we prefer a more organic image – you can’t simply take a culture like an organ-replacement patient and put it on some temporary life-support while you replace the heart or brain or other such vital organ.
The Stampede, in this discussion, assumes a substantial significance as one way of trying to ‘deconstruct’ the Church – and for many, any religious belief and any Multiplanar vision of human existence – in order to smooth the path for the asserted and prophesied marvels of a secularized, Monoplanar culture. (Meaning: these new ‘engines’ haven’t even been tested under operating conditions yet … but we are assured by those who have been putting the ‘engines’ together that they will work both marvelously and way better than the ‘old’ engines. It’s been almost half a century and I haven’t seen those prophecies fulfilled yet, and meanwhile the culture is losing altitude and speed.)
So I’m glad to see that the Church in this country is a) beginning to lose that old City-Cohort and ‘garrison’ mentality, where everything is familiar and same-old/same-old and predictable. And b)is beginning to become once again alive to her ancient Gifts and Mission. (Perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea of Rome declared this country once again a ‘mission territory’; just to remind all Catholics – clerical and lay – of the true dimensions of the challenge facing them.)
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12115-007-9038-4#page-1
Homosexuals comprise approximately 2-3% of the general population, yet, they commit close to 33% of sexual crimes against male minors. That's >10X their proportion of the general population.
Priests total approximately 40K worldwide. Approximately 0.04 of that subset were determined (without evidence, this includes "settlement" cases) to be "offenders" (50 year horizon).
If you had a minor male child, where would you want him; in the Church or out with the "general" population?
Who's doing all covering up outside the Church? Where is the Dallas Charter for the general population?
Where is the media on this?
Why is this problem so prevalent among homosexual males and why isn't anyone analyzing, publishing research (social, medical, media) on this unique psycho-social phenomena?
Political correctness….coverup, you bet.
Conspiratorial, organized cover up in the Church?… there's absolutely no evidence of that, and it certainly isn't due to lack of media attention, judicial investigations or political cronyism. Nancy, Joe, the Kennedy's, Cuomo's – they're about as far removed from the Church (ideologically, philosophically) as you can be and still make some half-hearted claim to Catholicism (more of a "born this way" Gaga-ism).
This is how you deflect the root of the problem away from the true culprits, the newly "annointed", and onto the latest "scourge" in a corrupt culture, our Catholic priests, scapegoats both here and abroad (Egypt, Syria, equatorial Africa).
Speaking of cover-ups, I haven't seen anything in the MSM on the Benghazi, NSA, IRS, AP, shall we add Syria soon (?) scandals of late. I hope it isn't because they're so worried about the [bogus] claims of dead priests offending juveniles 50 years ago. We could be missing some pretty big one's, here-
Delphin.
Is the 40′,000 approximation for the U.S. or worldwide? We would not want to point out an error made by such a perfect person. Why not change your name to Flipper?
Well, well, well. So much for the reliability of JR’s predictions. And we already have a good idea of the reliability of his retro-dictions. One might have imagined that he would have devoted himself to starting his own site – but it was merely that old psychological bugbear of ‘projection’, when he and others cackled that without their input the rest of us would have “nothing” to talk about. Actually, if it weren’t for the indulgence of some sites, it is they whose stuff would have nowhere to go; and they know that nobody would waste a keystroke to go to any site that they might set up on their own.
No surprises there.
However, while he and similar others are certainly not reliable, I would say that they are also not some lunatic fringe of the Abusenik movement. Rather, their type of mentality is at its core. Raised up out of the queasy swamps beyond the solid ground, they were given ‘voice’ by the internet and became useful and blithely ignorant tools of the larger interests that have always been behind the Catholic Abuse Matter. And they’d happily do it for free – happy just to inhabit the center of the illusion that they have some status and something worthwhile to say. If not Lenin’s “useful idiots”, they have certainly taken to the role of useful-tools.
But take a look at how their ‘concern’ mutates with the tides: first it was all the allegations made by the present ‘victims’; then it was the future ‘victims’; then the un-reported ones; then the still-unreported ones; then current allegations dropped off steeply after reforms were introduced and it wasn’t about the victims but about what the Church hadn’t yet done for past ‘victims’ (an almost impossible task to accomplish, given the problems already discussed in connection with it); and now we are informed today that it isn’t that the Church’s “child molesters” (demoted from rapists just a comment or two before) did what they did – but rather “it’s about what the bosses did” (nicely parroting the Jeff Anderson strategy to the effect that in order to maximize payouts you had to by-pass the individual priests and go for the “deep-pockets defendants” at the level of the Bishops and Dioceses and their Insurers).
And we notice that’s it’s all couched in the past tense. And we recall that LA document cache where the “passing them on” wasn’t quite established to be a widespread phenomenon or a frequent one even in the pre-Dallas era.
So do we “get it” now? If not, here it is: whatever claim or focus works in any given moment to make the Church look baaaad, is what will be tossed at the screen; and it will be done so with the mimicry of authoritative knowledge that makes certain individuals feel reely reely goood about themselves and how important they can feel they are.
And anybody who won’t play that game is baaaaad.
This is what happens when the internet collapses all the spaces into one, and serious work has to be conducted in the cafeteria or out on the sidewalk or – let’s face it – out on the sunporch.
Back to the necessary protocols then, and let’s stay focused on the task.
And expect no rational explanations. But there’s nothing new about that.
I'm a life-long Catholic, and I no longer attend church because of Archbishop Meyers. I can't in good conscience support an organization that stands by a leader who scares people into believing his point of view. I guess that makes me "evil" and a "sinner." If I have to be a sinner in order to question the Catholic hierarchy, so be it. I'm much smarter than that.
And, I applaud all of those who are protesting how the Catholic Church has handled abuse cases now and in the past – it's the right thing to do.
You don't seem all that smart to me-having faith ("life-long") and now you don't attend Church because of one man. Seems pretty lame. What you need to do besides "applaud all of those who are protesting" is join them. You have their same agenda; there is valid point to posting on here.
The church looks bad because it is bad.
You are written off by good people, not because of what the press simply reports. (after all the parish members didn't commit the crimes of coverup); but because you've manufactured a persecution that does not exist, that you might feel "pure" when you are not.
Your church was so used to being handled with kidd gloves that when when truth is told about it's real actions. You cry persecution;and that's called lying.
When is Mueller going to do the honorable thing and resign?
Amy, nice try, but your grandstanding formula has become so hackneyed and transparent that nobody takes it seriously any more.
"I'm a lifelong Catholic, but/however/and/……." Sorry – if you no longer seek communion with Jesus Christ within the one holy, Catholic and apostolic Church that he founded, then you are an ex-Catholic. That is, of course, if you ever were a Catholic…..
You use relatively minimal, historical cases of abuse as your purported alibi; and you hide your true motives behind self-aggrandizing sanctimony. Clearly, you have little trouble reconciling such dishonesty with your good "conscience."
An article in The Atlantic (first link below) has an interesting and relevant comment: “Syria coverage is American’s newspapers is the latest example of purportedly neutral, ‘objective’ press coverage that’s bursting with contestable assumptions” [italics mine].
This matter of media coverage that is “bursting with contestable assumptions” is very relevant to the matters under discussion on this thread and in this TMR article.
I myself would not use the word “persecution”, but when I think about it, the underlying dynamics are somewhat the same. Readers will recall a recent link in my comments to that article on the Goebbels gambit of 1937 (second link at the end of this comment).
So to assert that claiming Church “persecution” is “lying” requires the acceptance of a number of “contestable assumptions”: i) that the Church not only did some things less well at one time but (simply and totally) “is bad”, which is as sweeping and unsupported an assertion as one is likely to encounter; ii) that how the Church “looks” is totally and completely the result of its actions and not the result of any efforts by various interests and types to use those past actions (such as they may be – itself an assumption not only not-established, but highly dubious in the instances we have managed to examine it) to undermine the Church’s status and credibility for their own purposes; iii) that anybody attempting to examine this highly suspect PR phenomenon is merely trying to “feel ‘pure’” ; and iv) “when you are not” – which assertion itself requires huge leaps and presumptions as well as requires a definition of “pure”; v) that the PR phenomenon we are looking at is nothing but “truth”.
And then the incoherent conclusion of all of the above that to respond-to or even examine the phenomenon is “lying”. Which presumes precisely what has yet to be demonstrated: that there is and has been no distorting PR effort by any interests to use such ‘abuse’ (however defined) and handling of priests (such as it was) to undermine the credibility of the Church (which by the most amazing coincidence remains the largest and strongest institutional voice against elite-sponsored and government-abetted Monoplanar Secularism in the West).
And we then have to add the assertion – passed off as a fact – that the Church is “written off by good people”; and who might those be? So in addition to being assured of the existence of those myriads of un-reported allegations of abuse, and – more recently – of the existence of a “majority” of people who are pro-Abusenik, we are now assured that there is a large number of “good people” who have “written off” the Church.
And how has it been established that the Church has been “written off”? (Which in the first place is probably going to require a definition of “written off”.)
Lastly, we are – but of course – left with the prospect of taking JR’s expert word on what “lying” is – which, however, actually may be somewhat ‘expert’ in its way. Although – as always now – we must include one of the latest additions to the Notebook on the Playbook: that troublesome but ever-so-enlightening psychological gambit called “projection”.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/09/the-press-and-the-syria-debate-neither-neutral-nor-balanced/279256/
http://www.cesnur.org/2010/mi-goebbels_en.html
Imagine one Archbishop (rightly or wrongly) affecting one's passion for and commitment to their religion, or their God.
You don't "go to Church" because of your fondness (or not) for a pastor/priest/bishop: you go to worship God.
Cradle/Cafeteria Catholics are usually the first to bail at the slightest hint of discomfort. They have so much trouble seeing past a tree or two of problems to observe and experience the majesty of the forest.
[edited by moderator]
Using the hypocrites MO for determining guilt and cover-up – I do hope they're UTD on the findings of the Penn State abuse scandal – you know, the one where the government is culpable in an actual conspiratorial cover-up, with evidence (look that word up in your pocket dictionaries), of their minor abuse problem to protect the school, athletics and states interests (aka the "institution").
And, since we're so fond of extrapolations, let's extrapolate those 'hard evidence' findings to every public school system (…and every and any other place where men congregate) in every municipality in every state.
I hope the Amy's of the world can find a safe place to go, because the Church problem is a gnat on the rump of the elephant that is minor sexual abuse, in the US and worldwide.
This isn't a Church problem, kiddies, it's a cultural problem – your typical "lefty loosey-goosey, let it all hang out (literally) anything goes wherever you want to stick it" world view.
It's what happens when you run God out of town.
A Reminder:
This coming Monday once again another Philadelphia Archdiocese priest trial date is set to begin, and once again its not for a traffic ticket. (The AOP should be so proud)
Some god, that it can be so easily" run out of town". Has this all powerful diety been tarred and feathered too? Poor little god to be so abused by those created in it's image and likeness.
When a diety must rely on obfuscators; liars; smoke and mirror artiests; bullies and prefabricators like those who post here, for protection from honest criticism. How powerful and moral can it be?
You go to church to pray to be given something or protected from something. That's a Morality based on greed and fear. Or maybe you just go, to revel in your own imagination; and that's called Narcissisum.
Further on the journalism aspect here.
I am going to discuss the article “The Media and the Chemical Imbalance Theory of Depression”, by researchers Jonathan Leo and Jeffrey R. Lacasse; the article appeared in the print edition of the academic journal “Social Science and Modern SOCIETY” (caps are in the formatting of the journal’s title), Vol. 45, No. 1, Jan-Feb 2008, pp.35-45. (Readers may recognize this as the same journal issue to which I recently referred for another relevant article. The pay-wall issue still exists but the journal is also available from various sources in its print-hardcopy form.)
The researcher-authors here are examining the role of media in the matter of whether or not it has been reliably established and demonstrated that “depression” is caused primarily or essentially by “chemical imbalance” (they say No and examine the scientific and clinical research aspects at some length, showing that the “chemical imbalance” theory has not been established through any reliable research and that thus there are many other possible causes of depression, with “chemical imbalance” being just one theoretical possibility).
But then they get to their main point: that media ‘reporting’ about the topic reveals an eye-opening amount of unsubstantiated repetition of supportive assertions about an idea that a) has not actually been established and that b) is being pushed upon the public by a variety of under-the-table interests.
I am not taking a position on the clinical issues involving the etiology of depression here. What struck me was the usefulness of seeing the media-reporting problem in a setting other than the Catholic Abuse Matter (which – thanks to the Stampede – almost automatically now brings with it all sorts of baggage that clouds the core dynamics involved).
What these researcher-authors did was to follow-up on a large number of the media news articles discussing this depression-etiology topic: they got in touch with the reporters who wrote the articles and asked them for the references to material which they used to write the article. What they got back from the reporters was highly instructive.
One reporter (p.38, col.2) had used the subjunctive (the sufferers “may have a chemical imbalance” but then went on to state that such research supporting the theory is out there (“numerous studies have been done” and “the research is definitely available”). Our two authors contacted her and said that if the research is wide and widely available, then she should be able to provide some of the references she consulted. But they report that “she did not reply”. However in a later reprint version of the article picked up by another paper in the area, the assertions they questioned had been excised.
Another reporter (p.38, col.2) complained that “she did not go back to find the original references and that it would be difficult ‘to start from scratch every time I wrote a news article’”. To which I would immediately respond: if you don’t know if what you’re writing is accurate and true, then how can you think you are writing a “news article” to begin with?
A third reporter (p.39, col.1) who had stated definitively that “chemical imbalance” was “a hypothesis that proved to be right” did not answer email requests for substantiation. (This reporter was, by the way, from The New York Times.)
A fourth reporter (p.39, col.1) – also from the Times – sent back a link to a scholarly research article that did not actually address the core issue.
A fifth reporter had written that she herself had been “diagnosed with depression or a chemical imbalance” and emailed that she relied for her information on her own primary care physician and nothing else.
A sixth reporter (p.39, col.1) had asserted that a low amount of a certain chemical is “one symptom of depression”. The reporter had simply taken a press release from a local university study that had specifically stated that the lack of certain chemical “is thought to cause depression in some people”. Queried by the authors about the substantial disconnect between what was reported and what was stated in the actual study, the reporter did not respond.
Another media piece (p.39, col.1) turned out to be written by an advocate for a suicide-prevention group, and claimed that “chemical imbalance” “often could be” a cause. Queried by the authors, she provided the URLs of two websites. The first was her own group’s site and the second was the general URL to a national organization for mental-illness with nothing more specific. She was “interested in the clinical side of things” and not in research, she said – but I would ask how you can expect to be clinically effective if you don’t really know what the actual research and evidence has or has-not established in terms of the causation-of (and this therapy-for) a specific problem you are trying to help people deal-with.
Another reporter (p.39, col2) quoted a psychiatrist who then – when queried – provided the link to a scholarly article that actually had stated that “it is not clear whether these changes” were or were not caused by any “chemical imbalance” or other organic problem rather than environmental stressors affecting the brain. Nor had the study – done in 1991 – ever been replicated since it had first been published.
Another reporter (p.40, col.1) – from a Philadelphia paper – simply asserted outright that “mental illnesses are simply chemical imbalances”. Queried by the authors, she returned a link to a study on bipolar illness which was thus not only off-topic but also had never been replicated. And her second reference was a statement by the head of a professional scientific Society as part of a request to Congress for more funding (which requests are the type of documents that are prone to remarkable distortions in order to improve the possibility for the funding). When that was pointed out she simply said that she didn’t’ have time to really research articles deeply and assumed that the experts knew what they were talking about.
Another reporter (p.40, col.1) provided a reference to the National Institutes of Mental Health which provided a single link to a then-recent scholarly article reviewing research that simply speculated about possible causes of suicide. Asked for more specific evidence of “chemical imbalance” the NIMH did not respond.
Another reporter (p.40, col.2) wrote “It’s not a personal deficit, but something that needs to be looked at as a chemical imbalance”. Queried as to her evidence, she said she heard it from a psychiatric nurse-practitioner and left it at that.
Another reporter (p.40, col.2) wrote an assertive article in which he gave as the source a doctor in charge of a Florida “research-center” but neither the reporter nor the doctor responded when queried by the authors.
A CNN science reporter actually put up graphs and charts of brain scans, using various advanced brain-imaging and scanning technology to demonstrate that “chemical imbalances were real”. But the authors – themselves medical/scientific researchers – point out that such imaging technology is at this point only useful for research purposes, and in any case cannot work for “identifying depressed individuals”. As they note: it’s one thing to image a brain-state, and something else altogether to figure out how the brain reached that state.
And in a media interview the then-president of the American Psychiatric Association stated that “there was a constructive debate” about the “chemical imbalance” topic. Although that Association’s own Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders states bluntly that “the cause of depression and anxiety is unknown”. And, the authors continued, in genuine scientific procedure questionable hypotheses are not “debated” but rather are proven or disproven through experiment and research. The authors also note that although he had stated that the “chemical imbalance” theory as if it were a proven fact for which scientific evidence exists, yet the interviewer (Katie Couric) did not ask him to what evidence he was referring.
I went through this list here just to give you an idea of how techy the ‘reporting’ problem is. And if it’s this way with scientific research, then imagine how much more difficult it is with assertions and allegations about (past or long-past) incidences of ‘abuse’ in the 3-decade old atmosphere of Stampede.
But there’s more.
It turns out, the authors continue, that the pharmaceutical companies (colloquially known as Big Pharma, one of the larger economic ‘producers’ left in this country) are heavily invested in getting people to see themselves not simply as needing tonics and pick-me-ups (the 1950s and 1960s advertising reason for seeing about getting yourself some prescriptions drugs for mood and mind) but rather as having ‘mental illness’ of some sort that required prescription-level drug therapy.
In this context, what is needed is not “analysis” but “hype” – because the real objective is to increase sales by increasing (or creating) a market for the product. (And – in a dark obverse side of this – you don’t want any short-comings or failures of your drugs to receive wide publicity.) If people doubt the “efficacy” of the drug or start wondering about its “side effects” then they might not buy it or accept a prescription for it.
One major company provided references to a textbook – which, as it happened, had been authored by two doctors, one of whom was employed as head of neuroscience at another drug company and the other a member of the advisory committee for marketing a particular depression/anxiety drug.
The result being that “Many newspapers and websites continue to mention ‘chemical imbalances’ as if there is an abundance of scientific evidence in the literature … Several authors claimed that there were numerous studies available, yet they did not provide any specifics”. (.p.43, col.1) Our two authors wonder whether such failure to provide actual supportive evidence is the result of professional ignorance or because asserters know that there actually is no such evidence and that their claims are merely based on “hearsay”.
They are also concerned that reporters simply do not understand the topic they are writing about.
They are also concerned that “for some media outlets, the evidence is just not that important”. I would say here that media who rely on advertising revenues might not want to alienate prospective deep-pockets advertisers (i.e. Big Pharma); and that the ‘drama’ of persons afflicted by ‘illness’ and then happily and marvelously ‘rescued’ by heroic drug companies is too good a hook to pass up.
The authors are also concerned for the competence of the “reporting”: some outlets will “essentially publish press releases that are handed to them” (as if these were ‘reports’) and will do so “with little analysis on the part of the staff”. (p.43, col.1) I would point out here the similarity of this dynamic and Jeff Anderson’s strategy of creating what I call the Anderson Axis between tort attorney and willing media outlets, especially in pre-trial or pre-lawsuit phases where public opinion can be prejudiced or manipulated beforehand (thus confronting – say – the Church with an already-hostile public environment and the prospect of potential jurors tainted even before they are called for jury duty).
Certainly, the authors say, it is possible that in some cases or under some conditions a chemical imbalance may play some causative role, but that is a far cry from simply asserting that chemical imbalance is in all cases the basic cause of depression. As they say, “It is one thing to say that extraterrestrials might exist somewhere in the solar systems” but “It is another thing to say ‘there is evidence of extraterrestrials in the solar system”. (I note here, for example, the profound difference residing merely in the simple plural “solar systems” and the singular “solar system” – for those who might not think that in clear thinking and expression it’s the little grammatical bits that count for so much.)
They also note the effect of slyly worded and interpreted ‘surveys’: one market research/survey company claimed that “virtually all (ninety percent) of North Americans believe that depression can be caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain”. But, the authors note acutely, such a question would have almost no meaning to most average persons since they are not scientifically informed to the extent that they could have an informed opinion. And further, the response was that “chemical imbalance” could be caused by that imbalance – once again the use of the subjunctive rather than the indicative carries profound weight in accurately interpreting this datum.
And the authors are concerned that editors are not exercising more oversight in ensuring the accuracy of their reporters’ stories, a matter we are seeing vividly demonstrated in this current TMR article.
Well, sorry for the long comment but I think it’s useful to see how the method of Stampede – in this case, toward the increased use of prescription drugs to deal with what has been very dubiously spun as a “disease” – is more widely spread than we might imagine, and that in such Stampedes there are always special ‘interests’ to be found driving the herd. A Stampede as I have been using the term in comments is certainly no figment of anybody’s imagination.
In case some of the TMR contributors missed it (just a reminder), the real reason behind the attacks on Archbishop Myers at link below.
The Bishop committed the 'cardinal' sin of crossing the PC line into "Entitlement-ville".
Mueller and Moran are both (in addition to rabid antiCatholics) gay marriage supporters (as are most of the MSM). It's the new "civil" (however uncivil they are) rights issue, after all (just as anyone who opposes the current Administrations' policies is racist. Wonder how that will wash with the antiwar OWS-type zealots?).
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/09/25/newark-archbishop-catholics-who-support-gay-marriage-should-not-receive-holy-communion/