Anyway, for some time I’ve wanted to put up an entry on this blog about the Catholic Church and its current scandals. However, I haven’t been able to find the right words to say that the scandals – while individually horrible – are not the proper way for the public to frame the Catholic Church. FOX News commentator Bill O’Reilly actually wrote a column on his personal website yesterday that perfectly addresses the way that I think most Catholics view the scandals in the Church. The column, in its entirety, is below.

Over the years, I have occasionally written about being a practicing Roman Catholic, a fact that sometimes leads to incredulous statements like “YOU go to church?” Somehow, I don’t believe the question is a compliment.

This is a tough Holy Week for Catholics, as once again the terrible specter of child molestation is in the air. Driven by a series of articles by the New York Times, the church now faces questions about whether Pope Benedict XVI ignored some past abuse cases when he was a cardinal. The evidence is scant, but damning anyway, because of the previous priest-pedophilia scandals.

A number of Catholics have left the church because of the priestly sins, but not me. From the beginning, in Sister Claudia’s first grade class, I understood that the Catholic Church was about Jesus, not Father Flannery. Believe me, I saw so many loons in my Catholic school days that I should be a Buddhist. But it is the theology, not church leadership, that keeps me in the fold.

You may remember that I was a driving force in bringing down the villainous Cardinal Law in Boston, a man who allowed child molesting priests to run wild. When Law was forced to resign, I was happy. But then the late Pope John Paul II gave him a cushy job in Rome, where he remains today. If it were up to me, the cardinal would be in prison.

Even though I respected Pope John Paul’s holiness, I was deeply disappointed that he did not meet with molestation victims when he visited the United States in 1999. The pope should have done that simply to show devastated American Catholics, and the victims themselves, that he cared and understood their pain. When I publicly criticized Pope John Paul for avoiding the issue, the Catholic League scorched me. And that’s fine. They are entitled to their opinion.

Throughout it all, however, I stayed with the church. If you cut through all the bull, the doctrines of treating others as you want to be treated, forgiveness and redemption, and charity for all stand the test of time. Even if the atheists are right and there is no God, the philosophy of Jesus is full-force positive. Live the way he lived, and the world will be a better place.

The actions of others must be considered, of course. But I like this analogy: We’ve had some pretty bad leaders in America, right? Do they make you want to renounce your citizenship? The United States is not the people who lead it. It is all of us.

Same thing with the Catholic Church. It’s not corrupt priests or apathetic leaders in Rome. It’s Jesus and his followers, the folks who sit in the pews on Sunday. And that’s good enough for me.

Again, I think that Mr. O’Reilly does an excellent job of capturing the describing how most Catholics feel about the Church.

There is a lot to write about this particular issue. I could write about how one of my liberal professors is touting the White House’s opposition to FOX News strictly on ideological grounds. One could also write about how Chris Wallace from FOX News Sunday hit the nail directly on the head when he suggested that this White House is filled with a bunch of crybabies. Or one could write about how other news stations are sticking up for FOX. In fact, directly from that New York Times article comes this:

In a sign of discomfort with the White House stance, Fox’s television news competitors refused to go along with a Treasury Department effort on Tuesday to exclude Fox from a round of interviews with the executive-pay czar Kenneth R. Feinberg that was to be conducted with a “pool” camera crew shared by all the networks. That followed a pointed question at a White House briefing this week by Jake Tapper, an ABC News correspondent, about the administration’s treatment of “one of our sister organizations.”

Pretty respectable for the competition to honor the unfair treatment that FOX News has been receiving, huh?

However, I want to focus on two things regarding this issue – the White House’s intentional blur between what is news and what is opinion on FOX News and the game that the White House is playing with FOX News.

First, anyone who studies media or watches a great deal of CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News while reading a diversity of newspapers can tell you that there are only so many ways a company can report a story. When a tornado hits Kansas, you don’t often hear FOX News reporters saying, “A tornado hit Kansas today and the lousy liberals are to blame.” Just like you don’t hear any legitimate reporter on MSNBC blaming conservatives for acts of God. When it comes down to reporting events from around the world, you’re going to read or watch the same report no matter where you go.

However, when it comes to commentary, you’re going to get a divergent approach to “reporting.” Bill O’Reilly calls himself a “humble correspondent.” That’s part of his approach to opinion journalism and there is nothing wrong with that at all! O’Reilly takes a very traditional view on the issues, but that’s okay because he’s hosting a program that is rooted in commentary. Glenn Beck has a staunchly libertarian point of view. Now, those who are not well-versed in political ideology would suggest that Beck is a conservative, but he’s not. So the next time you hear a mass media report or read in a newspaper that Beck is a conservative, then you need to second guess that source of news. Sean Hannity, on the other hand, is a hardcore conservative and there’s nothing wrong with that, either.

FOX News clearly labels these programs as commentary and anyone who knows anything about social interaction beyond “Hello, my name is…” can tell that these programs are NOT news-based! The White House isn’t filled with dummies, they understand that these programs are opinion programs. However, their strategy is to lump the legitimate news departments in with these opinion programs to paint FOX News with a broad, anti-liberal, anti-Obama brush. They know that by doing this, there will be a certain percentage of the population that completely agrees with them and will eventually take over this fight now that it has been brought up at a higher level. It’s a shame that such easily influenced, non-critical thinking people exist to do the White House’s prolonged dirty work.

My second point is that the White House actually managed to do something that they hadn’t been able to do up until they began attacking FOX News, i.e. get the FOX News commentators to STOP digging into the backgrounds of Obama’s staff. Think about it. Glenn Beck single-handedly led to Van Jones’ downfall, which opened up the door for other media organizations to wonder what they had missed out on (read the New York Times article linked above). This, frankly, scared the hell out of the White House and led to them attacking FOX News. If the media is covering itself, then they’re NOT digging into the people who maybe shouldn’t be sitting around the table with the President, right?

Hopefully, people will begin to notice this on a large scale and begin to demand that their White House stop engaging in partisan attacks on the media and, instead, get back to the job of running this country.

Now while there are certain people out there who immediately write off any product put out by O’Reilly as right-wing propaganda, I have to admit that reading the man’s history gives a clear indication of how he grew up to become the person that he is today – both politically and as a broadcast entertainer. Growing up in the typical working class family, O’Reilly had to fend for himself when playing outside and didn’t have overbearing adults watching over every move he made. Some would argue that the problem with today’s children (aside from being over-medicated and over-categorized) is that they aren’t allowed to just be kids any more!

I would have liked to know more about O’Reilly’s experiences in school because I believe that a person’s experience in the classroom is one of the best indicators of how he or she will progress as a person. To that end, though, he does give many stories about the classroom, his teachers, and his classmates so I guess that without the addition of hundreds of pages of more content, the information that he includes is adequate!

If anything, I would have liked for a more time-aligned presentation of O’Reilly’s experiences as he does tend to jump around from here to there. The book is a quick read and it is written in the style that O’Reilly speaks in on his television show – pithy comments littered throughout.

For those of you who are looking for a quick read, I would recommend O’Reilly’s book. If you’re looking for some insight into how he became the man and pundit that he has grown into, then you’ll enjoy this book, too.

I can’t think of a better example of O’Reilly’s culture war proclamation than the NAMBLA case. For those of you that don’t know, NAMBLA stands for National Man Boy Love Association. You don’t want to pass judgment until you know what their purpose is? Okay. Their purpose is to decriminalize rape between older men and young boys. No, not young boys like college kids or high school kids – we’re talking elementary school kids and younger. Yes, a ridiculous organization like this exists!

Now, if you think that these men are completely heinous and should be thrown in prison for engaging in these acts, then you believe in traditional American values. However, if you believe that these pedophilic perverts have a right to engage in their activity as a part of their pursuit of happiness, then you are a secular progressive warrior. My suggestion is to take no shame in either position that you hold because I’ve always believed in saying what you mean and meaning what you say. So if you believe that these rotten scumbags have a right to do what they do, then by all means don’t be a bitch about it. Stand up and proudly proclaim that you believe older men should be able to rape young boys.

And when you do that, don’t be afraid when 99% of the country calls you an asshole and shuns you. It’s only the traditionalist army coming out and finally speaking their minds.

O’Reilly’s book talks about other issues, too. However, if you’ve been a viewer of his television show for the past few years, you know most of the rest of the book. He talks about the very real war on Christmas and how it was won due to common sense, traditional thinking Americans. He talks about the absolutely abhorrent sexual predator case in Vermont where a little girl was raped for 4 years and the rapist was given SIXTY DAYS IN JAIL! Thankfully, the sentence was extended to 3 years, but that’s still not enough – by a long shot.

I think for those of you who watch O’Reilly’s television show, this book will serve to reinforce what you probably already know of his positions on some major issues. What I found interesting in the book was the research put into the people who are the progressive leaders in America and the world. Very interesting stuff which I think everyone would enjoy reading.

The book is well written and a quick, 200-page read. I recommend this book (as I recommend most books) if not for supporting the stance that O’Reilly takes in this culture war, then at least to gain an alternative perspective on today’s world.