NY Times National Catholic Abuse Correspondent Laurie Goodstein
Her gig may finally be up. It has now come to the point that every sentient being now agrees that Laurie Goodstein at the New York Times is something less than an objective reporter when it comes to reporting about decades-old episodes of sex abuse in the Catholic Church.
A recent Times podcast by Goodstein asks the question, "Sex Abuse and the Catholic Church: Why Is It Still a Story?" Goodstein then disingenuously claims, "The answer lies with the victims."
However, it has become crystal clear that Goodstein is really only concerned about victims of one institution, the Catholic Church. As we have repeatedly chronicled, Goodstein has written nearly 100 articles this decade about sex abuse in the Catholic Church, but she has written exactly zero articles about sex abuse in any other religious institution.
Say what, Laurie?
So we were surprised when a reader of this site passed on an email exchange he had with Goodstein in which Goodstein made the following claim:
"I have written about sexual abuse among Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Scientologists and Hare Krishnas."
Really, Laurie? We scoured the archives at the Times searching desperately for these alleged articles about sex abuse "among Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, Methodists, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Scientologists and Hare Krishnas." Here is what we found:
- Goodstein wrote a single article 11 years ago about sex abuse in the silly 1970s "Children of God" cult.
- She wrote another single article 15 years ago about sex abuse in the "United Church of Christ" in Massachusetts.
- Goodstein wrote another single article about sex abuse among Hare Krishnas 18 years ago.
- She wrote a couple of articles about sex abuse among Jehovah's Witnesses (1, 2) 14 years ago.
- In 2010, Goodstein wrote another single article about "abuse" in the Church of Scientology, but she made no mention of sexual abuse at all, only of an alleged "abusive environment" (social/emotional/mental).
- The closest Goodstein came to writing about abuse in the Jewish community was "contributing" to a 2012 article, "Ultra-Orthodox Jews Rally to Discuss Risks of Internet."
Notice that not one of these articles was even written in this decade, while Goodstein has penned nearly 100 articles about sex abuse in the Catholic Church.
And as we have repeatedly reported, Goodstein has been radio silent on abuse among Protestant groups. An eye-popping 2002 article in the Christian Science Monitor stunningly reported that in Protestant churches "the pace of child-abuse allegations against American churches has averaged 70 a week."
70 abuse allegations in Protestant churches … per … week.
Yet Goodstein has written exactly nothing about this. Nada. Zilch.
"All the news that's fit to print"? Not even close.
On the 19th at 1052PM ‘Dan’ allows as how he’s not happy with my “poor assessment jobs”. He’s welcome to his opinion, although – as I have said before – he really doesn’t have much choice: if my assessments are accurate then his personal cartoon dissolves and he’s left with – not to put too fine a point on it – himself (rather than Himself).
And we get echoes of those bits of “himself” that prompted the creation of the ‘Dan’-verse to begin with: his references to “pervert” and “pedophile” (he is, of course, “anti-“ those things) reveal, I would say, some of those aspects of that “himself” which he seeks to evade.
He makes use of classic fundie arguments and talking-points. Given that he is bent upon creating for himself (or Himself) a religion-of-one in which he is the boss, then I would agree that few fundies would accept him as one of their number.
But he is not, I would say, any sort of “true Christian”. Rather, he has glommed onto ‘God’ as the source of authority that will evade and erase his own issues. And he most clearly has trouble with all those “man-made laws and rules”.
The only "issues" I would like to "evade and erase" would be your ignorant, nonsensical, stupid lies and poor assessments, but you insist on piling onto your garbage heap. The only reason you can't stand to hear "pervert" and "pedophile" is because liars hate hearing the truth, it is something completely unacceptable and foreign to a liar. So keep on mocking and lying, "Queen of Pathological Liars", Whore of Babylon. Awww. You no like? "Too bad"!
Oh! And you would be the one to judge who is a real "true Christian" or not. An idolator, goddess worshipping, pedophile excusing, perverter of truth, Yeh! Like I'm really worried about your assessment on that one, lying mocking creep. Can't wait for God to glom onto you.
And on the 20th at 153AM ‘Dan’ will try an old JR gambit: the only reason he uses so much epithet – doncha see? – is that I use such terms as “eructations” to describe his “beautiful prophecies” (as he would no doubt put it).
Oh, and it is ‘rude’ of me to label Abuseniks as … Abuseniks.
Then he descends into the depths of JR’s preferred gender-bendy bits: I am “Queen of Pathological Liars” (while ‘Dan’, of course, is King of Truthy-Truth-Tellers, as satrap of (‘Dan’s convenient version of) God.
And then another – and rather obvious at this point – stab at I’m Not/You Are: he wonders if I even “know the difference between the truth and lies”. Readers may consider his own performances here and judge as they may.
As I have noted here, ‘Dan’ appears both a) sunk in his preferred illusions yet also b) capable of some significant whoppers.
There’s something in ‘Dan’s recent crop here about the Church and Nazis: it was all he could come up with if he didn’t want to deal with the outline of propaganda and agitprop. It need not detain us.
On then to ‘Dan’s of the 21st at 1039AM:
‘Dan’ reports he can’t hear anything but “unintelligible noise”; which is best explained by his figuratively (and, for all we know, literally) putting his hands over his ears and/or eyes so he doesn’t have to deal with what he doesn’t want to deal with.
And then he piously bleats that “what really scares” him is my “obsession with cartoons”. His own obsession with “pedophilia” and “perverts” and “creeps” and “liars” and no-life-losers … he’s not at all concerned about any of that. But if he were, of course, his head might explode – which was why he constructed his personal cartoon in the first place.
On the 21st at 1111AM we are assured by ‘Dan’ that ‘Dan’ is his real name. Who knows? And what difference would it make one way or the other?
But he then insists that “only lying creeps have something to hide”. Yet – had you been waitttingggg forrrr ittttt? – while he would “have no problem” giving his full name to “Jim”, yet ‘Dan’ doth “see no reason to give it to someone who defends his fellow creeps” – bottom line: no name. And so what? The reality of the entity using the moniker ‘Dan’ is what it is and stands revealed by his own hand.
On the 21st at 1159AM ‘Dan’ will raise the point about being – so he says – “a catholic altar boy”. Who knows? And of what relevance is it anyway to the points under consideration?
But he is certainly “obsessed” with “liars” and “stupidity” and “nonsense” and does like to toss those terms around (along with “pedophiles”, “perverts” and “creeps”) and no surprise there.
On then to ‘Dan’s of the 21st at 508PM:
Nothing but epithets. No surprise there.
On then to ‘Dan’s of the 21st at 719PM:
Once again, more whoppers.
This time – and in scream-caps – there was no “judge” and so forth. Who then “placed” him in a mental facility? What case was it that he just claims to have ‘won’ if it didn’t involve a judge?
Nor did I ever mention “jail time”.
And we now have his nicely-put “haranguing” of the school-kids (‘Dan’-verse description: “beautiful prophecy”).
Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 21st at 719PM:
But this self-proclaimed paragon of (divine?) veracity will have to reconsider his comment of March 24th at 1259PM, where he doesn’t deny that he was “sent to jail or mental hospitals”. The schoolyard episode (not, as we recall, one of the other six) did not result in any of those but clearly at least some of those other six did.
And on the 24th of March at 1259PM he would also have us believe that “in all the incidents” there were only “citizens arrests” … and, if he be believed here (recalling as well his tirade against Catholic police and so on) readers may consider for themselves just how alarming his behavior had to have been for others in this day and age to make a ‘citizens arrest’. Several times.
His scam here is to shift focus to the schoolyard incident and away from the other six (to the extent, of course, that any of his story-telling here is accurate and veracious in the first place).
Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 21st at 719PM:
And in that March 24th comment he tells about his “mental hospital stays” and – another whopper – he received “no counseling”. Are we to believe he was simply left for anywhere from one to several days to sleep and take nourishment and pass the time? Was he assessed? Was he given any feedback by the examining staff?
And beneath all of this there remains the elephant in the room: who but a judge could require him to go for such “mental hospital stays”? Clearly one or several judges didn’t think the claims of his accusers were all nothing but “lies” and so forth.
Reread this comment and wanted to respond. When a man or woman of the cloth, belonging to any major religion, asks to make a citizens arrest, even if the accusation is false, who do you think a cop is going to believe? When they show up in court in full dress, will the judge believe what I have to say or someone posing as God's "Truthy-Truth Teller"? Tell me, Mr. Know-It-All, who do you think they listened to?
Maybe you've been under the porch too long to ever have eaten the slop they serve, but if you call cold food, broccoli stems and pig slop, nourishment, then I'd hate to know your diet. Sad thing was all their lies also cost my disabled friend I take care of, the special gourmet meals I make for her. We are waiting for the Lord's justice against all lying creeps. servant
Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 21st at 719PM:
So thus, ‘Dan’s epithetical characterization of me as “LIAR” (scream-caps retained) recoils upon him, and rightly so.
Getting some distance, for a moment, from all of his sly contortions, I would simply say again that the Stampede – especially once the internet got up and running in the mid-late 1990s – invited such types and benefitted from their various eructations and claims and stories.
And had more of the Stampede’s claims and stories and assertions and accusations and denunciations and all the rest of its agitprop gambits been given sufficiently sustained assessment decades ago, then I would say that the Catholic Abuse Matter would have been more accurately envisioned and understood.
I choose to ignore all your previous ignorance on May 22, and prefer to answer the rest of your ignorance here. Using your "I'm Not/You Are gambit" again, smarmy – " 'LIAR" recoils upon him, and rightly so". Well if the worst "LIAR" I've ever run into says it's "rightly so", then it surely must be "rightly so". We'll just easily add that lie to your lengthy list of "LIES", "little boy who cried wolf ", again.
Your last paragraph here is a laugh. You're telling us that if they had a "lyin' assessor" like yourself around years ago, then the Stampede's truth would have been much easier to refute. The "Catholic Abuse Matter" is/was rampant, despicable, disgusting, nasty, filthy, perverted and practiced throughout your cult and that is irrefutable. You think you and your cronies can lie and dispute small facts or one case of fraud and that means just about none of the "pedophilia and perversions" ever existed. You are a fraud, your cult's hierarchy is filled with "LIARS" like yourself, and Christ's statement describes you creeps perfectly, "You blind guides. "You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel." Absolute despicable hypocrites!
P.S. If you think your lying assessments are what's helping your cause, then once again I must say, "You are most definitely a legend in your own mind." servant of the Lord
On the 22nd at 941PM ‘Dan’ will take his usual evasion route and simply declare and pronounce that he doth “choose to ignore” my points from my sequence of the 22nd. No surprises there. What else, at this point, can he do?
And as usual he supports his mere string of epitheticals by presuming that when he proffers only his own talking-points then he has proven that anything he doesn’t want to hear is “lies”.
Thus he dismisses my point about how things might have turned out had the Catholic Abuse Matter been accurately and comprehensively reported in the mainstream media (rather than simply publishing unsupported ‘victim’ story after story). He dismisses all that and then pronounces all that ‘reporting’ as “irrefutable”.
He can achieve that – in his own mind, anyway – by simply presuming that whatever he wants to hear is “irrefutable” and that whatever he claims and asserts is “irrefutable” as well.
Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 22nd at 941PM:
And if you were about to wonder about all the highly refutable and clearly refuted bits in his own on-going story, then he slyly has an excuse for that too: All of the refutation is merely “lie[s]” and the “disput[ing] of small facts”.
In regard to his own claims, assertions, and (ever-changing) story, he so conveniently overlooks the fact that when a number of small facts either individually raise questions and doubts as to their probability or even possibility and/or when cumulatively they add up to a hash, then the veracity of the core story and claims collapses.
In regard to a long-asserted claim of child-rape where there was no rape and no child (which perhaps is what he refers to with his “one case of fraud” bit), that is clearly a valid and legitimate discovery.
Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 22nd at 941PM:
And if he was referring perhaps to the Doe case(s) in Philadelphia, then readers may consider if what we saw and continue to see in those Doe cases – so clearly demonstrating the many elements of the Stampede which I have long and often explicated here – does or does not constitute evidence of the high probability that such scams were and remain a vital element in the Stampede.
And he then for his own convenience creates something I never said: I have never speculated on just how many cases extant in the Catholic Abuse Matters were genuine (e.g. “just about none”). I leave that up to readers to consider, in light of everything we have seen here on this site and that readers themselves have seen or read elsewhere in that regard.
If ‘Dan’ wants to keep his own ball rolling by speculating that – say – ‘just about all’ of the cases were veracious and accurate and genuine, then that’s his speculation to make.
Continuing with my comment on ‘Dan’s of the 22nd at 941PM:
Thus readers are also free to consider just who might be a “fraud” and who might not, ‘Dan’ included.
And they can do so even though ‘Dan’ has tried to bolster his bits here with another pericope.
And as to who is indeed “a legend in [his] own mind”, readers are also free to consider ‘Dan’s claims as to his status as the divinely-chosen spout of God.
On then to ‘Dan’s of the 23rd at 109AM:
Here ‘Dan’ will try to deal with his “citizen’s arrest” trope by claiming that a police officer will automatically believe “a man or woman of the cloth”, and will do so – he slyly adds – “even if the accusation is false”.
But then, the judge(s) apparently considered those accusations and somehow ‘Dan’ was “placed” for the mental observation stays. Are we to imagine that the judge(s) said something to the effect of: these arrests are without merit and yet I will send the defendant for mental-observation stays?
And if all of the incidents took place more or less within the same general police or court jurisdiction, then the cumulative effect of his six or more incidents would surely play a role.
And – as if somehow aware that this bit of ‘logic’ isn’t going to hold much water – ‘Dan’ then tries to back it up with both a) an epithetical riff on whatever food I eat and (the method in the madness here is revealed) b) that he prepares “special gourmet meals” for his “disabled friend”. Cue the violins.