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Promoted from the diaries by streiff. Promotion does not imply endorsement.
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Were I a conspiracy theorist, I might just see a pattern here.

Pope Francis is convening a summit meeting of sorts later this week, with over 100 senior bishops, to discuss the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. This isn’t something new, but has been in the works since last fall. I wrote yesterday¹ about an article in The New York Times attempting to normalize homosexuality among Catholic priests.

And today? Today’s article concerns children sired by (supposedly) celibate priests:

Vatican’s Secret Rules for Catholic Priests Who Have Children

By Jason Horowitz and Elisabetta Povoledo | February 18, 2019 | A version of this article appears in print on February 19, 2019, on Page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: A Priest With Progeny? Church Has Guidelines for That.

ROME — Vincent Doyle, a psychotherapist in Ireland, was 28 when he learned from his mother that the Roman Catholic priest he had always known as his godfather was in truth his biological father.

The discovery led him to create a global support group to help other children of priests, like him, suffering from the internalized shame that comes with being born from church scandal. When he pressed bishops to acknowledge these children, some church leaders told him that he was the product of the rarest of transgressions.

But one archbishop finally showed him what he was looking for: a document of Vatican guidelines for how to deal with priests who father children, proof that he was hardly alone.

“Oh my God. This is the answer,” Mr. Doyle recalled having said as he held the document. He asked if he could have a copy, but the archbishop said no — it was secret.

There’s much more at the link, and, as with yesterday’s Times story about homosexual priests hiding in the closet — “It is not a closet; it is a cage” was the headline — it seems as though the editors have decided to push stories aimed at pushing Catholic parishioners to reform the entire idea of the Catholic clergy, far more than simply address the sexual abuse scandal.

Now, I agree that the entire Catholic clergy needs to be reformed, and have said so in the past. But there’s a huge difference between one faithful parishioner making such statements, and the might-as-well-be-atheist editors of The New York Times.

During the confirmation hearings for Appellate Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) declared that “The (Catholic) dogma lives loudly within you,” causing complaints that Mrs Feinstein was attempting to impose a religious test for office. The Times published (at least) two articles (one an opinion article masquerading as a straight news story, and another they at least listed as an OpEd piece) which defended Senator Feinstein’s questioning. Judge Barrett was confirmed, but, quite naturally, drew many negative votes from Democrats, including Mrs Feinstein.²

It appears that the editors of the Times are simply opposed to Catholicism, period. They oppose the Church’s teachings on homosexuality, on same-sex ‘marriage,’ on contraception, on abortion, and on an all-male clergy. Given that hostility, it isn’t difficult for me to see what appears to be a coordinated effort to push Catholic parishioners toward putting pressure on the Church to reform the entire faith to the editors’ views.

In a way, it’s like a Democrat giving advice to a Republican as how best to appeal to the voters: the advice will always be suspect, because the motives of the Democrat giving that advice do not include helping Republicans. And when it comes to The New York Times, the editors’ motives will always be suspect.
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¹ – The article is on my own website; it was not submitted to Red State because it is as much about religion as it is media bias.
² – Mrs Feinstein has voted against every Supreme Court nomination made by a Republican President, including the unobjectionable John Roberts.