The Catholic League describes itself as “the nation’s largest civil rights organization,” but when it comes to the civil rights of children sexually abused by priests, they’re nothing of the sort.
I don’t know for sure who’s behind the Catholic League’s Twitter account, but it’s a good bet that it’s the organization’s president, Bill Donohue. The man is proof that religion does not make one moral.
Donohue’s most recent statements in response to a horrific grand jury report detailing the rape and sexual abuse of over 1,000 Pennsylvania children at the hands of hundreds of Pennsylvania Catholic priests is nothing new. While addressing the Catholic Church’s systemic rape of children at the hands of pedophile priests in past statements and interviews, Donohue has dismissed the phenomenon as a problem that has “already been checked.” In an interview on CNN in 2013, Donohue argued that the church doesn’t have a pedophile problem because most of the victims are “post-pubescent,” meaning that the true culprit is “homosexuality.”
That’s just a small example of his past reprehensible statements, so it should have been no surprise when he took the role of pedophile rape apologist once again in the wake of the Pennsylvania grand jury report that was released last week. In an op-ed for the website CNS News (an affiliate of the right-wing Media Research Center), where he claimed to ‘debunk’ the report released by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court as an “obscene lie,” Donohue argued that most of the victims “were not raped: they were groped or otherwise abused, but not penetrated, which is what the word ‘rape’ means.”
Then there was this tweet fired off from the CL’s Twitter account on Saturday:
It is interesting to note that the most irrational, indeed hysterical, reaction to PA grand jury report is coming from conservative Catholics. They are singularly incapable of making a cogent argument, so all they do is vent like little boys. They are a pitiful lot.
— Catholic League (@CatholicLeague) August 17, 2018
I’m going to go out on a limb and say this is Donohue (a hunch that’s backed up with this follow-up tweet). Once again, he demonstrates his insistence on diminishing any accountability for the crimes committed by Catholic priests. Now, church members horrified by the latest news are “irrational” and “hysterical.” CNN’s Jake Tapper took notice of the unfortunate metaphor Donohue chose:
Wherein the Catholic League uses the term “little boys” as synonymous with over-emotional, not credible and to be ignored. https://t.co/fiKB3lb9fd
— Jake Tapper, long-suffering Philly sports fan (@jaketapper) August 18, 2018
Others were disgusted as well:
https://twitter.com/bkerogers/status/1030468779170508800
https://twitter.com/Scott_A_Hewitt/status/1030469981979529216
I’ll tell you what’s pitiful – this statement from the @CatholicLeague! What a disgrace!
— Carol 🇺🇸 (@CarolJordanWill) August 17, 2018
best not mention “little boys” for the next 1000 years. One for each child. You still dont get it.
— Mia Farrow 🏳️🌈 🌻🇺🇸💙 (@MiaFarrow) August 17, 2018
“ vent like little boys”? Just to be clear, do mean like non-traumatized little boys or little boys who have been sexually abused by priests and utterly betrayed by their church?
— Lynn Novak (@MissM4rple) August 17, 2018
This has to be the most shameful thing I’ve seen on the internet today, and that is really saying something. Praying that you might feel sadness and remorse for the victims over pride and vengefulness.
— Amy Figarelle (@amyfigarelle) August 17, 2018
If there’s any hope for the largest religious institution in the U.S. to dig itself out of the hole of moral rot that it’s created for itself, it can start by doing two things: subject pedophile rapists and their protectors to criminal prosecution, and excommunicate psychopathic pedophile enablers like Donohue from the church.
Featured image via screen grab/YouTube
