TheMediaReport.com writes:

A priest washed out the mouth of a young sex assault victim with holy water? Another priest sodomized a boy with a crucifix? Another priest assaulted another kid multiple times on an airplane? 300 “predator priests”? The Church “did nothing”?

Are these sickening stories all true? No, they’re not, and we will show you explicitly in this special, two-part report.

Where does one begin to get at the truth of the recently released Pennsylvania grand jury report that has wrought breathless headlines across the globe? Here are two essential starting points:

1. The most important point to know is that a “grand jury report” is not really written by any jury members. As any lawyer will tell you, the report is actually written by government attorneys with a predetermined outcome. The folks in the “jury” are merely a formality, window dressing to make the matter legal. Jurors sit in a room eating hoagies and reading the newspaper while “listening” to the proceedings. There is no fact-checking, no cross-examinations, and no due process. Those cited in the report have almost no recourse to defend themselves. Accusations are assessed less on evidence and more on the desire for them to be true.

When the time comes, a jury member simply slaps his signature on the finished attorneys’ report to make everything official. Press conferences ensue, and hysteria follows. [Highly recommended: “If it’s not a runaway, it’s not a real grand jury” by Roger Roots.]

In theory, a grand jury is supposed examine evidence to determine whether a crime took place and should be prosecuted. This was clearly not the intention of Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro. In an 800+-page screed, Shapiro’s report (and yes, it’s really Shapiro’s report, not a “grand jury report”) does not recommend a single criminal charge, because almost all of the accusations are many decades old. The fact that countless tax dollars and unlimited government resources were expended on this escapade – while giving far-more-recent abuse in public schools, the Boy Scouts, and other organizations a complete pass – should raise serious questions about Shapiro’s true motives.

2. Countless headlines have trumpeted that the report identified over 300 “predator priests.” In truth, that is the number of those merely accused; and the listed men are not just priests but include lay people, deacons, and seminarians. Many, if not the majority, of the priests in the report are long dead and no longer around to defend themselves. This caper examined allegations dating back to the 1930s, some eight decades ago. (One of the priests named in the report was born in 1892, about the same time that light bulbs became popular.) Several men in the report vehemently deny the accusations against them, and some claims in the report are outright false. (Much more on this in Part II.) [HT: Catholic League.]

Unpacking a Shapiro whopper

Countless news stories have faithfully regurgitated one berserk line in particular from the report, a line which Shapiro clearly tailored for the media to seize upon:

“Priests were raping little boys and girls and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing: they hid it all.”

There is no other way to put it except to say that this is a flat-out lie by Shapiro. Even a cursory look at the report debunks this absurd claim.

Take the case in the report of Rev. Joseph Mueller: In 1986, a man went to the Diocese of Pittsburgh to claim that Mueller abused him years earlier as a teenager. Then-Bishop Donald Wuerl immediately removed him from ministry and shipped him off to St. Luke’s treatment facility. Based on its evaluation of the guy, St. Luke’s advised that Mueller “not work with children or adolescents.” A diocesan memo also declared Mueller “unassignable.” So what did Wuerl do? He stripped Mueller of his faculties, and the dude never worked as a priest again. Sayonara.

That, dear readers, is not “doing nothing,” as Shapiro claims, and he knows it.

In fact, if one takes the time to actually read the report, one will see that the first action by a diocese, even many decades ago, was almost always to immediately remove the accused priest from his assignment. In a bunch of cases, priestly faculties were stripped. Therapy was often provided to victims.

Josh Shapiro’s claim that the Church showed “complete disdain” for victims is nothing but an ugly smear. “I met with every victim. Anyone that would come forward, I met with them and I’d have to say more than once shared a tear with them as they or their parents told the story,” Cardinal Wuerl has told.

Sent off to treatment?

There are those who will want to castigate the Church for sending priests off to treatment, but, as regular readers of this site already know, that was exactly what so-called psychological experts advised bishops to do in a 1985 report. And even the Boston Globe (yes, the Boston Globe!) was trumpeting therapy treatment for child sex offenders as recently as 1992.

For Part II, go here.

A commenter at TheMediaReport writes:

What the PA Attorney General has done is an unconstitutional abuse of the Grand Jury system. The Grand Jury is convened for the purpose of formulating charges for criminal prosecution. We have to read the small prints to see that the Grand Jury concludes that none of the accused can be charged due to the statute of limitations. It should have ended there. Instead, these government agents in Pennsylvania are using the Grand Jury to try a case in the press that they can not try in a court of law. They allow no defense, no cross examination, no witness except those who support the prosecution, and no due process for the accused many who are dead, while those living have been denied any opportunity to testify. This is not how the American Justice system works in the 21st century. It is how it worked in 1692 in Salem Massachusetts. We can bluster all day about eliminating the statute of limitations but the Supreme Court has ruled that revised criminal statutes cannot be applied retroactively. This PA PR stunt is shameful, one-sided, and illegal.

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