Same Old Story: Accused Priest Is Cleared, Boston Globe Goes Mum

Another priest falsely accused: Rev. Msgr. Francis V. Strahan of the Archdiocese of Boston

The claims were ludicrous from the beginning. Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan (Massachusetts) and an anonymous accuser wanted the public to suspend all common sense and somehow believe that Rev. Msgr. Francis V. Strahan of the Archdiocese of Boston randomly sexually assaulted an altar boy in an open church shortly before a Mass over 15 years ago despite the fact that the priest had an unblemished record for over 60 years.

Msgr. Strahan was ordained when Dwight Eisenhower was President, yet we were asked to believe that he waited until the vigorous age of 73 in 2006 to start sexually assaulting altar boys in broad daylight. Msgr. Strahan is now 90 years old and, again, has never had any other accusations against him.

When publicity-hungry D.A. Ryan announced her indictment against Msgr. Strahan last year, the Boston Globe was sure to prominently promote the story on its web site. In what has become a standard practice in the Globe when it reports about the Catholic Church, angry subscribers then chimed in with a barrage of anti-Catholic screeds in the story's comments section. Among the over 100 comments:

• "The catholic church is the largest child rape cult in world history."
• "Catholics defend pedophiles like normal people would defend children."
• "The whole catholic church is irredeemably corrupt, and has been for over a millennia."
• "They're all either pedophiles or pedophile protectors."

(When an exasperated reader finally suggested that the Globe close the comments on the story because they were getting out of hand, another reader retorted, "Why? Are they mean to your child rape club by telling the truth?" Classy stuff.)

A fraud goes bust, and the Globe naturally goes silent

But, lo and behold, last week law enforcement dropped the charges against Msgr. Strahan after the accuser claimed that his "PTSD symptoms have increased" and he would no longer be willing to testify in court. Uh-huh. Having followed the issue for many years now, we know it is a common tactic for an accuser to claim some sort of mental condition as a way to avoid public scrutiny of a phony claim.

Yet when the charges were dropped against Msgr. Strahan, the Globe did not feel it worthy to report the story at all. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Absolutely shameful but in keeping with past practice.

An anti-Catholic agenda continues

Thank you to C.J. Doyle of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts for this story. And when it comes to the Globe, Doyle was spot-on when he said earlier this year:

"No one should believe that the media campaign against the Catholic Church twenty years ago was motivated by a desire to protect children … For the Globe and the rest of the Boston media, coverage of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church always had just one purpose — discrediting, neutralizing and destroying the public influence of an institution they regarded as a political, cultural and ideological enemy."

In other words, there is no mystery as to why the Globe did not report Strahan being cleared. It didn't fit the paper's political agenda.

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Want to learn about the rampancy of false accusations against priests?:
- "False Accusations Against Catholic Priests Are Now At Epic Proportions" (May 2019)
- The book: The Greatest Fraud Never Told: False Accusations, Phony Grand Jury Reports, and the Assault on the Catholic Church by David F. Pierre, Jr. (Amazon.com)
- The book: Sins of the Press: The Untold Story of The Boston Globe's Reporting on Sex Abuse in the Catholic Church by David F. Pierre, Jr. (Amazon.com)