Much ado about nothing?

Catholic League president Bill Donohue disses the furor over the long-awaited report of systemic abuses in the Irish reform school system as much ado about not much.

HYSTERIA OVER IRISH CLERGY ABUSE

After nine years of investigation, Ireland’s Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse has published its findings. More than 30,000 children, most of them delinquents, passed through one or more of Ireland’s Catholic-run institutions from the 1920s through the 1980s.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the report today:

Reuters is reporting that “Irish Priests Beat, Raped Children,” yet the report does not justify this wild and irresponsible claim. Four types of abuse are noted: physical, sexual, neglect and emotional. Physical abuse includes “being kicked”; neglect includes “inadequate heating”; and emotional abuse includes “lack of attachment and affection.” Not nice, to be sure, but hardly draconian, especially given the time line: fully 82 percent of the incidents took place before 1970. As the New York Times noted, “many of them [are] now more than 70 years old.” And quite frankly, corporal punishment was not exactly unknown in many homes during these times, and this is doubly true when dealing with miscreants.

Regarding sexual abuse, “kissing,” and “non-contact including voyeurism” (e.g., what it labels as “inappropriate sexual talk”) make the grade as constituting sexual abuse. Moreover, one-third of the cases involved “inappropriate fondling and contact.” None of this is defensible, but none of it qualifies as rape. Rape, on the other hand, constituted 12 percent of the cases. As for the charge that “Irish Priests” were responsible, some of the abuse was carried out by lay persons, much of it was done by Brothers, and about 12 percent of the abusers were priests (most of whom were not rapists).

The Irish report suffers from conflating minor instances of abuse with serious ones, thus demeaning the latter. When most people hear of the term abuse, they do not think about being slapped, being chilly, being ignored or, for that matter, having someone stare at you in the shower. They think about rape.

By cheapening rape, the report demeans the big victims. But, of course, there is a huge market for such distortions, especially when the accused is the Catholic Church.

Now, all educated people know that Bill Donohue is a pathetic idiot and propagandist, but this is sad by even his dismal standards. And that last sentence ought to make the decent-minded forever unavailable to receive his phone calls.

It’s the Catholic Church that is the victim here?! What the hell is wrong with that man? I say, to regard Bill Donohue with anything but frank, open contempt is to shame and disgrace oneself.

P.Z. Myers gives Donohue the ass-whipping he deserves.

The unhappy truth is that, in a deeply Catholic country where the church enjoys immense power and to overtly challenge it is politically and socially suicidal, this look at the decades long operation of the reform school system by the Catholic Church is a glimpse for our time of a sectarian Christian state.

This is the world that the Sunday morning shouters are demanding when they damn secularists and wail that America has turned away from Righteousness. This is the world that Albert Mohler dreams of when he condemns thought. This is the world that is the inevitable culmination of the Christian teaching that we’re all rotten and deserve to die, and that hope for the future lies in passive surrender to the status of a dumb farm animal.