Fred Martinez's Monitor

What is the Real Agenda of the National Catholic Reporter and VOTF?

By Fred Martinez

On February 20, the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) dissented from definitive Catholic teaching by endorsing homosexual marriage. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered…[and] under no circumstances can they be approved.”

The “Catholic” lay operated national newsweekly said, "The ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts allowing same-sex civil marriage is a beneficial step along the path of human understanding and human rights."

As a Special Commentary Columnist for NewsMax during the height of the Catholic scandal in 2002, I first became acquainted with NCR because of the lay-group Voice of the Faithful (VOTF).

In the summer of 2002, I received this e-mail from a NewsMax reader:

“Could you please direct me to a reliable assessment of the group Voice of the Faithful? A local ‘chapter’ is meeting this afternoon in Nashville, and it has been characterized by a local priest as ‘just conservative Catholics who want some changes.’”

In researching the lay reform group it emerged that NCR (considered the New York Times of Catholic liberals) was pushing VOTF as a solution for the Catholic sex-abuse scandal, even as the lay-group was being promoted as “just conservative Catholics who want some changes.”

The National Catholic Reporter is the most respected liberal Catholic newspaper in the United States. The publication has a readership of 120,000- with 40% of its reader being religious or clergy. It is in 96 countries and a frequent winner of the Catholic Press Association’s Award for General Excellence, according to the NCR website.

The research revealed a cover-up by NRC and VOTF. Kelly Clark of The Lady In The Pew website in a review of my new book The Hidden Axis summarized what was brought to light:

“Fred Martinez delivers plenty of much needed ‘tough love’ to the Church in America today. Hidden Axis covers much ground including a neat turning of the tables on the lay group called Voice of the Faithful. VOTF was ostensibly formed in response to the sex-abuse scandal and ‘cover-up’ and is in fact actively participating in the continuing cover-up by incessantly refusing to acknowledge the link between the scandal and homosexual priests.”

VOTF’s Priest of Integrity and the Homosexual Agenda

The winner of the first VOTF Priest of Integrity Award, the Rev. Thomas Doyle on the Internations Justice Federation website, in 2003, attacked some articles including mine, which exposed the cover-up as well as the "sex-experts" that helped to create the vast majority of Catholic scandal headlines. Doyle said:

"The articles are based on writings of Dr. Judith Reisman who has apparently devoted her life to a critical study of the work and methods of Dr. Alfred Kinsey... Reisman, herself not a clinician but with a Ph.D. in communications, claims that Berlin and Money are Kinsey disciples whose primary agenda is putting sexual abusers back on the street and promoting the so-called "homosexual agenda."

"Reisman, and those who support her contentions, claim that the [Doyle-Peterson-Mouton] ‘Manual’ was actually intended to support this nebulous "homosexual agenda" ...Fortunately Dr. Riesman’s allegations and the contentions of those who build on her ideas, are taken seriously by only a few and those few are limited to the extreme ‘right’ (for lack of a better term) who seem obsessed by sex in any form, and with homosexuality in particular." [http://www32.brinkster.com/interjustice/rcscandals3.html]

Doyle failed to mention that in 1991, the widely respected British medical journal The Lancet verified Reisman’s research when it demanded that the Kinsey Institute be investigated, writing:

"The Kinsey reports (one in 1948 on males and the companion five years later) claimed that sexual activity began much earlier in life…and displayed less horror of age differences and same-sex relationships than anyone at the time imagined. It was as if, to follow Mr. Porter again, ‘Anything goes’. In "Kinsey, Sex and Fraud," Dr. Judith A. Reisman and her colleagues demolish the foundations of the two [Kinsey] reports."

In the document "How Junk Sex Science Created a Paradigm Shift in Society, Legislation and the Judiciary," Reisman said:

"Based on his [fraudulent scientific] data, Kinsey claimed that children enjoyed sex and the real harm of adult-child sex stemmed from ‘hysterical’ parents, teachers and professionals who reacted with anger and horror to children’s disclosures. Based on his findings, many legislatures lightened or eliminated penalties for sexual offenses…toward children as ‘victims’ in cases of incest and child molestation."

Doyle also decided not to speak about what the Doyle-Peterson-Mouton manual said—and Bill Clinton would appreciate this—that "exposing the genitals" to unfamiliar persons "represents one of the ‘victimless crimes.’"

But the main problem is that the manual uses the standard gay activist spin that the gay movement and the media used to censor the Vatican and all conservatives who attempted to report the link between homosexuality and sexual abuse by priests in 2002.

The tactic, as used for the most part in the Executive Summary of the manual, is to say that the scandal is about pedophilia and then claim that pedophilia is not associated with homosexuality, but is a heterosexual problem or at most a heterosexual/homosexual problem.

The gay activist expert and psychiatrist Jeffrey Satinover, who wrote the book "Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth," which the Congressional Record of May 1996 called the "best book on homosexuality written in our times," states this is a standard spin. He writes:

"Activists are aware of the adverse effect on the gay-rights movement that could result if people perceived any degree of routine association between homosexuality and pedophilia…They have denied this association by focusing on the (true) fact that—in absolute numbers—heterosexuals commit more child molestation than homosexuals." "But careful studies show that pedophilia is far more common among homosexuals than heterosexuals."

According to an article by Register Correspondent Ellen Rossini, "Although heterosexuals outnumber homosexuals by a ratio of at least 20 to 1, homosexual pedophiles commit about one-third of the total number of child sex offenses," said Tim Dailey, a senior fellow for culture studies at the Family Research Council. (The National Catholic Register, September 15-21, 2002) [http://www.ncregister.com/register_News/091002sem.htm]

With the above in mind I said in my book, "If VOTF and the liberal bishops really want to end the church scandal, then they have to stop covering up the gay part of 90 percent of the scandal [The February 2004 National Review Board Report says 81 percent of the victims were males]. If VOTF and Doyle really want to end the pedophilia part of the scandal, then they have to expose the fraudulent scientific data eliminating penalties for sexual abusers and the Kinseyan ‘experts’ who are advising the bishops."

If not, then VOTF needs to take the advice that Doyle gave in Canada in 2002:

"Any institution that enables the cover-up, protects the abusers or the authorities that hide them, doesn’t deserve to exist."
National Catholic Reporter’s Standard Gay Activist Spin

National Catholic Reporter and Fr. Richard McBrien (the biggest name among liberal Catholic theologians supporting VOTF) can be included in the list of those who covered-up the "link between the scandal and homosexual priests."

On April 5, 2002, NCR was using the standard gay activist spin. The spin entails saying that the scandal is about pedophilia and then claiming that pedophilia is not associated with homosexuality. McBrien in a 2002 NCR article wrote:

"Even though prominent psychiatrists and psychologists have been reminding us on television and in news interviews that there is no necessary link between homosexuality and pedophilia, the popular view to the contrary still holds sway in many parts of the church and in society at large." [http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1141/22_38/84970282/p1/article.jhtml]

On March 12, 2004, the National Catholic Reporter, in an article by Doyle, was still covering-up the fact that the scandal was overwhelmingly a homosexual priest sex-abuse problem. Although now he and the NCR weren‘t using the gay spin that the scandal is about pedophilia and then claiming that pedophilia is not associated with homosexuality. The NCR and the Doyle spin now was:

"Others have tried to unsuccessfully minimize the issue with the hardly newsworthy revelation that only a small percentage are really true pedophiles and most victims are above the age of reason. Again, a resounding so what? Abuse is abuse, and that’s the point, not the age of the victims...The spin also tries to blame the press, the lawyers and the so-called dissenters and unorthodox." [http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/archives2/2004a/031204/031204d.php]

For Doyle, VOTF and the National Catholic Reporter enforcement of orthodox morality in penal law and canon law are not the solution to sexual wrongdoing. Instead for these groups a change in the church government is the solution. Doyle in the March 12, NRC article said:

"This is all much bigger than a challenge to celibacy, injustice or the monarchical governmental system. It is all of the above. If we add the element of hope to the embattled landscape perhaps we can see it all as a moment in the age-old evolution of Catholicism from an institutional kingdom to the people of God." [http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/archives2/2004a/031204/031204d.php]

New York Times and NCR’s Desired "Unusual Pope"

With this desired change in the “old order” of the "institutional kingdom" in mind, it must be remembered that the timing of the media’s "breaking" of the sex-abuse Catholic scandal story was when Pope John Paul II’s health appeared to be deteriorating during masses. In fact the media was sending correspondents to Rome with expectation of a papal conclave.

Was the media’s "breaking" of the sex-abuse Catholic scandal story, timing or coincidence?

Either way the media’s intent was to use the story to promote dissent. That is why during the height of the scandal “ CNN trots out folks like ...CNN's guest 'expert,' Sr. Bridget Mary Meehan, who calls for 'structural changes' that allow laity greater say. Meehan and others of her ilk expect that once the laity is given control of the Church, it will relax sexual morality” according to journalist Mary Jo Anderson.

On June 14, 2002 Anderson in the WorldNetDaily reported: "The Globe and others have known for over a decade about the growing gay sub-culture in the Church, but the Globe and others [notably the New York Times and most of the mass media] simply winked—they are no less guilty of a cover up than Cardinal Law. It did not seem worthy of print. Until, that is, Pope John Paul II, the disliked “reactionary” pope and others faltered during Christmas masses."

According to Anderson the goal of the scandal reporting was "to use this crisis to create chaos so large that a new pope will have to deal with the crisis as his first order of business. If a momentum is built that insists that the old order is the problem, perhaps the cardinals can be stampeded into electing an unusual pope: a candidate approved by the New York Times and the United Nations.” [http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp? ARTICLE_ID=27962 ]

The TV journalists and Times’ "unusual pope" would be a pontiff who is receptive to the gay agenda.

Ex-CBS insider Bernard Goldberg in his book "Bias" Goldberg said, "The problem is that so many TV journalists simply don’t know how to think about certain issues until the New York Times and the Washington Post tell them what to think. Those big, important newspapers set the agenda that network news people follow."

The gay movement appears to set the agenda for the New York Time, which sets the agenda for the rest of the media. NewsMax ran an article about Accuracy in Media’s Reed Irving’s inquiry into the NY Times bias. Irving said Richard Berke, a national political correspondent for the Times, spoke at a gathering of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. Irvine says that Berke assured the homosexual group that the Times would remain very receptive to the gay agenda because "three-fourths of those who regularly attend the daily meetings that determine what will be on the front page of the Times the next morning are ‘not-so-closeted’ homosexuals."

The Times‘ “unusual pope" also would be a pontiff who is receptive to the ordination of women. The New York Times, a few years back, gave Fr. McBrien the opportunity to attack the Pope. He said to the New York newspaper:

"There are literally millions of Catholics in the U.S. alone who see no reason why women can't be ordained, and they're not going to decide they're not Catholics and stop going to church...it is the Pope and the Vatican who will be seen as being out of step." [http://sfbayc.org/magazine/html/ctanews.htm]

The National Catholic Reporter (a long time forum for dissent against the definitive Catholic teaching against women's ordination ) on Sept 10, 1999 in an article by Michael J. Farrell said that they must remain steadfast in their support of Fr. Richard McBrien despite "letter writers who criticize the paper for carrying the syndicated columns of the Notre Dame professor."

"The complainers' main complaint, it seems, is that McBrien is not sufficiently deferential to the pope," Farrell said.

" It is no secret that this papacy has placed loyalty to the Holy Father high among its priorities. An atmosphere was created in which criticism of the pope was regarded as defiance. This attitude has flourished in right-wing circles in this country." [http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1141/39_35/56458761/p1/article.jhtml?term=]

VOTF Supporter Fr. McBrien and a Former National Catholic Reporter Contributor

In the March 12, NRC issue there appeared an editorial supporting an ad that VOTF placed in the New York Times two days after the National Review Board released the "Report on the Crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States." In the ad, VOTF was still covering-up the homosexual link to the scandal, but NCR supported the lay organization because the "ad had the sound of a campaign getting underway."

The Times ad according to the National Catholic Reporter petitioned signatures for the following:

That Pope John Paul II "meet with an international delegation of victims/survivors of clergy sexual abuse";That the pope hold responsible those bishops "who knowingly transferred sexually abusive clergy" and accept or call for resignations "where appropriate";That each U.S. bishop disclose details of their oversight in transferring abusive clergy and clergy who have credible allegations against them. [http://www.natcath.com/NCR_Online/archives2/2004a/031204/031204q.php]
One of the main supporters of VOTF and possibly the most posted columnist on the lay-organization’s website, Fr. McBrien made a similar plea. According to the January 29, 2004 The Observer online, an independent newspaper serving Notre Dame:
" In the Jan. 27 Observer article "Campus, Seminary Reacts to Priest Scandal, ‘Fr. Richard McBrien asserts that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' audit of its program for preventing sexual abuse by priests ‘could have been prevented if the Church has responded properly when allegations began coming to light over 25 years ago.’ According to McBrien, "some ... dioceses were not as forthcoming - and still are not - as they should be.’"

However, it appears that McBrien might not be an appropriate person to call for “the pope [to] hold responsible those bishops "who knowingly transferred sexually abusive clergy" and accept or call for resignations "where appropriate." According to The Observer:

"Given his current sanctimonious condemnation of the Church regarding clergy sexual abuse, one might assume McBrien, to use his words, "responded properly" when [ Fr. James] Burtchaell's [homosexual] sexual misconduct was brought to his attention. To the contrary, McBrien concealed Burtchaell's conduct; he did not discipline him or remove him from contact with students. In short, McBrien continued to put Notre Dame students at risk of a known sexual predator." "Although McBrien had knowledge of [the former National Catholic Reporter contributor] Burtchaell's crimes as early as 1989, Burtchaell's sexual abuse of Notre Dame students was not made public until late 1991. When asked about Burtchaell's serial sexual abuse of students after concealing knowledge thereof for more than two years, McBrien refused to "comment on the matter." See National Catholic Reporter (Dec. 6, 1991)." [http://www.ndsmcobserver.com/news/2004/01/29/Viewpoint/Mcbrien.Forced.To.Deal.With.His.Past-590959.shtml and http://www.natcath.com/crisis/120691.htm]

Apparently, NCR and McBrien need to investigate themselves to see if they "responded properly" when sexual misconduct was brought to their attention.

What Structural Changes do VOTF and NCR Want to Make?

McBrien and the National Catholic Reporter in their writings and accommodating coverage of Voice of the Faithful have steadfastly supported VOTF’s stated goal for a campaign to change the Church’s structure. In 2002, James Likoudis told me what these structure changes might be: "Richard P. McBrien oozes with admiration for this group [Voice of the Faithful] seeking to restructure the Church, democratize it, gain financial control of it, and subordinate our Bishops to this new lay class of secular feudal lords and professionals," Catholics United for the Faith’s Likoudis said.

"It’s a power grab under the guise of more ‘lay participation’ and is made up of those dissenting liberals and radicals who do not like Catholic moral teaching but do like Dignity and GLAAD [radical homosexual organizations]."

In the summer of 2003, when I asked editor of Crisis Magazine and former professor of Philosophy at Fordham University, Deal W. Hudson, what are the structural changes that Voice of the Faithful wants to make. He said:

"They’ve never defined them in any way. So the only conclusion you can come to is that the kind of structural changes they want are those represented by the people they invite to address their meetings," Hudson said. "Which are those who want ordination of women, married priests, to end priestly celibacy and finally to end Vatican authority over the parishes in the United States."

posted by Fred Martinez @ 5:17 AM