LAST MONTH, when I was away from home and not following the story, Catholic League President Bill Donohue, PH.D., wrote of the mind-blowing injustice of the grand jury report on clergy sex abuse issued by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro:

Importantly, in almost all cases, the accused named in the report was never afforded the right to rebut the charges. That is because the report was investigative, not evidentiary, though the report’s summary suggests that it is authoritative. It manifestly is not.

The report covers accusations extending back to World War II. Almost all the accused are either dead or have been thrown out of the priesthood. For example, in the Diocese of Harrisburg, 71 persons are named: 42 are dead and four are missing. Most of those who are still alive are no longer in ministry.

There are some cases that are so old that they are unbelievable. Consider the case of Father Joseph M. Ganter. Born in 1892, he was accused in 2008 by an 80-year-old man of abusing him in the 1930s. Obviously, nothing came of it. But the priest was accustomed to such charges.

In 1945, at the request of Father Ganter, a Justice of the Peace interviewed three teenage males who had made accusations against him. Not only did they give conflicting stories, the three admitted that they were never abused by Ganter. But don’t look to the media to highlight this case, or others like it.

Read the entire statement of Donohue for myths perpetrated by the report and by the media coverage of it.

What Donohue didn’t say — and it was irresponsible and cowardly not to point it out such a glaring detail — was that Shapiro is Jewish and, by his own admission, is guided by Judaism in his public service work.  Shapiro used millions of taxpayer dollars to wage a religious war against the Catholic Church.

Update:

Here’s another piece by TheBigMedia.com summarizing the grand jury report. Normally grand juries examine evidence and approve charges. This was not the case with the report in Pennsylvania. Many states do not even allow this sort of report, comprised of simply testimony by witnesses with no charges and no chance of due process for most of the accused. Interestingly, the Church’s own documents were used to make many of the accusations. An institution which keeps such records is hardly guilty of the sort of cover-up Shapiro accuses the Church of. BigMedia writes:

Do you ever wonder why you never see a “grand jury report” about abuse by public school teachers from the 1960s, 70s, or 80s like we do from the Catholic Church?

The reason is simple: Under federal law, organizations only need to retain personnel documents for one year after an employee departs the organization. Then off to the shredder they go.

Meanwhile, the Church preserves documents dating back to the first century, and at the same time it is accused of secreting evidence and obstructing justice.

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