Pope Benedict's visit misreported by the press as usual!

Today, Pope Benedict arrived in Washington and met our president on the White House lawn. He greeted the 13,000 people, some of whom had been lining up since 4 am in the morning, with a beautiful speech, spoken eloquently, emphasizing the dignity of humans of all ages (INCLUDING FETUSES OF COURSE), an idea which President Bush also mentioned in HIS speech. The Pope also stated that this country WAS founded on religious principles and that, as evidenced in HISTORY (something few Americans study!), government without morality and religious principles always has in the past, ended up in totalitarianism. Pointing out that it is wonderful that Americans have the right to worship in freedom (something which the small percentage of atheists are trying to take away from us - my comment - not his), he expressed his hope that the American people would live up to respecting the rights of "life, liberty and the PURSUIT of happiness" for all people. He concluded that freedom is a responsibility.

President Bush's speech was also beautiful and profound - that brought tears to my eyes as he spoke about the rights of ALL people from the womb to the elderly. He treated the Pope (who was celebrating his 81st birthday) with dignity but gave him a warm welcome. When Raymond Arroyo asked Bush what he saw when he looked into the eyes of the Pope (in an interview last week), Bush replied one word. "God. I see God", he said.

None of this was reported by the news media, obviously upset that the Catholic church would be portrayed in any type of positive light.

Instead, they concentrated on one sentence in a speech the Pope delivered, apparently before he arrived on American soil, about the Priest scandal. This one sentence became the headliner for most of the news - both on TV and on the internet:

In his most extensive comments about the crisis to date, the pope said that he was "deeply ashamed" and that the scandal had caused "great suffering" for the church and for "me personally." Speaking to reporters aboard his flight from Italy, Benedict also pledged greater efforts by the church to bar pedophiles from the priesthood.

Extensive comments? ONE SENTENCE? Since when is a sentence "extensive comments"?

From this the internet news launched into long articles about how much money the church has paid out to those who claim abuse from priests ad nausium.

The TV news searching long and hard, managed to find one priest, accused of touching boys, who was, according to them, not removed quickly enough from duties. They criticized the Pope hugging Cardinal George, that priest's Bishop. I guess they feel the Pope should have kicked him or something because he was "imperfect" in handling this situation (ignoring that the man traveling the country campaigning for his wife, our former president Clinton, used his powerful position as president to seduce a young woman, REPEATEDLY, in the Oval Office and then, perjured himself (i.e. LIED ABOUT IT) in front of the entire country. Can we say Hypocrasy?)

Finally, ABC news interviewed one tearful couple who looked in their 70's. They claimed some priest had been over to their home daily to "say his morning prayers" and had repeated raped their 5 year old daughter. She, according to the couple, had not told them about this until years later because she said she was "afraid" that her father would murder the priest (the father apparently had said if anyone ever hurt her, he would kill them).

Has anyone ever heard of manufactured memories? I for one, was not impressed by this case. Few people remember ANYTHING which happened at the age of 5 and had the child really suffered that type of trauma, she would have shown definite signs of abuse which would have been so obvious, shame on her parents for ignoring these signs. However, I think this "abuse" (like so many others) just happened in her head and NOT in reality.

The facts show that less than 1 percent of Catholic priests have been ACCUSED of abuse and of the small percentage, even less are convicted. Never-the-less, the constant battering by the news services has left many priests in great fear that anything they say or do, might be misinterpreted by say, a student who was given a non passing grade in school or angry for some other reason. And I speak this as having had a Jesuit for my spiritual advisor for several years. The wear and tear of this media blitz on our priests has been immeasurable but no one has even heard about this at all.

The media also showed film footage of people with signs from the anti Catholic group, SNAP. The signs read "Celibacy doesn't work".

Fact remains that 10 percent of Protestant ministers (who are allowed to be married) have been accused of sexual misconduct but according to government statistics, the most sexual abuse happens in families - 75 percent of childhood sexual abuse is committed by parents or step parents or close relatives.

But never shall the news moguls be confused with facts. The bottom line, seems to be "do anything which can neutralize the courageous Pope's visit and if we can mudsling at the Catholic church, well by all means, do it!"

Satan is alive and well in the news media which REALLY doesn't like the Catholic church because of the church's strong stand against abortion, an industry which in the 1980's had reached a profit of 500 million a year (according to Nathenson who was one of the co-founders of NARAL) and now, may well be profiting in the billions.

Hopefully Catholics will be smarter than that and discard the negative spin from the news media. Hopefully. Unfortunately for those who do not listen to EWTN and other Catholic media, outfits like ABC News are all they have to inform them of the news.

The group, SNAP, has told the media that the Pope's statement about the priest abuse was "not enough". Not surprising because in other interviews, the group (none of which are still Catholic by the way) has stated their bottom line is the demise of the Catholic church. Catholics should remember that "EX-Catholics are about as Catholic as Ex-husbands are married."

Finally for those who are abused, I don't have a lot of sympathy for their backlash movement against the church and the 99 percent of priests who are pure and obedient to their vows. I, as a victim of being sexually molested myself as a 12 year old by my music teacher, will admit that a sexual molestation like that can somewhat ruin a person's life in a way but also, a child when confronted by a stranger who does this, can take him/herself out of the relationship and should do so, after the first offense.

In other words, when my 50 year old, married violin teacher, the father of 2 kids himself, molested me in the car going home from a concert, I did not give up the violin... I only found another violin teacher.

All this is just a smoke screen so Americans do not really get the impact of the fact that abortion mills murder 5000 unborn babies each day. To the tune of a big profit. Let's hear the news bimbos talk about that one. Don't hold your breath! They only care about kids when they can use them to diss the church which stands up for morals which they would like to forget.