Bill Donohue over at the Catholic League (and more than a few bishops) has been on a tear for several years, accusing the media (specifically the NYT) of an anti-Catholic bias that obsesses over abuse in the Catholic Church while ignoring it in other institutions.

It’s not a new charge. Here’s how I reported remarks by Archbishop Wilton Gregory, then the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, to the Religion Newswriters Association in 2003:

Gregory … faulted reporters for only “minimal attempts” to investigate sexual abuse in other institutions and “linking sexual abuse solely to Catholic clerics.” “The way the story was so obsessively covered resulted in unnecessary damage to the bishops and the entire Catholic community,” Gregory told members of the Religion Newswriters Association meeting here.

…

Gregory, who has enjoyed mostly smooth relations with the media despite intense scrutiny over the scandal, said, “If society has any hope of eliminating this terrible exploitation of our youth, then we also have to face up to this scourge as it exists in the family, in school systems, and in all forms of professional and volunteer work with young people.”

Those of us in the 4th Estate have argued that we’re not after the Catholic Church for its own sake, but rather that the Catholic Church has a unique hierarchical structure (as opposed to public schools, or even Southern Baptists) that enables abusers to be shuffled around, reassigned or protected from prosecution. Jim Martin over at America magazine finally sums up the argument that we’ve often tried to make:

Despite the fact that Scout masters, school teachers, youth minister and the like–not to mention ministers, rabbis and imams–have all been connected with sexual abuse, the institutions of which they are members simply have not demonstrated (so far) the obtuseness, stonewalling, defensiveness, instransigence and sinfulness that the Catholic church has on this matter. The institution of the church–and here I mean the hierarchy–particularly in its historic desire to shield itself from any and all critique by “outsiders,” and its desire to avoid “scandal,” made the problem of sexual abuse, which is probably just as rampant in other groups, infinitely worse.

I’m glad someone (in a collar) finally said it.