Commentary

The New York Times and Maureen Dowd on the Catholic Church Abuse Scandal

Robyn Broyles — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 14:25:04 -0600

I wrote this letter to the editor of the New York Times in response to an exhortation from Fr. Dwight Longenecker, who blogs at Standing on my Head. It calls out Maureen Dowd for a few of her journalistic crimes regarding the current furor over sex abuse cases in the Catholic Church. I could not bring myself to link to Dowd's columns, but Fr. Longenecker did.

Dear Mr. Hoyt,

I am writing about the shocking dishonesty on display in Maureen Dowd's recent columns about the Catholic Church sex-crimes scandal. Because Ms. Dowd is intelligent and experienced, I cannot believe her false statements result from simple incompetence, but rather a willful refusal to fully investigate the situation and intentional distortions of the facts.

Here are a few specific problems representative of the errors in Ms. Dowd's columns:

In "A Nope for Pope," Ms. Dowd implied Pope Benedict XVI cannot be infallible because he has sinned gravely in the Fr. Murphy case. First, the facts do not implicate the pope (then Cardinal Ratzinger) in any wrongdoing. Further explanation can be found in an article by the former Judicial Vicar for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, Fr. Thomas Brundage. His account, which is a primary source since it is a first-hand story, can be found at this web address (http://catholicanchor.org/wordpress/?p=601). Second, the concept of papal infallibility was completely misrepresented. Because this belief is neither difficult to research nor to understand for an intelligent person like Ms. Dowd, I can only conclude that she was deliberately refusing to check her facts.

In "Should There Be an Inquisition for the Pope?" Ms. Dowd accused the pope of "[going] along with the perverse culture of protecting molesters and the church’s reputation rather than abused ... children." This statement is plainly libelous. For example, again in the Fr. Murphy case, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), headed at the time by Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), was not notified for over 20 years after civil authorities investigated and dropped the case. Because by this time Fr. Murphy was on his deathbed and was in isolation, the CDF found that the greatest penalty at its disposal, permanent dismissal from the clerical state ("defrocking"), was not necessary; instead it recommended the Archdiocese restrict him from public ministry (a formality, since his ill health prevented him from engaging in any public ministry activities anyway). Fr. Murphy died soon after. (More information about this case can be found at The Catholic Herald's Guide for Confused Catholics.) No reasonable person could conclude from this account that Cardinal Ratzinger deliberately obfuscated facts nor refused to address the situation, and in fact he has dealt with sexual abuse cases with bracing firmness against transgressors (including leaders who covered up incidents) and great compassion for the victims. Therefore Ms. Dowd's statement constitutes libel.

In "Devil of a Scandal," Ms. Dowd vilified the pope without even bothering to make any specific allegations, real or invented. She also tritely dismissed comments from the Holy See's chief exorcist, Fr. Gabriele Amorth, with a ridiculous and insulting joke about cupcakes. This column shows that she is not really upset about the scandal, but rather she is enjoying it.

Please reign in this out-of-control columnist, using whatever means are at your disposal, up to and including her dismissal as a writer for the Times. Your publication and its reputation will only benefit from such action.

Sincerely,

Robyn Broyles

Dominican Sisters of Mary on Oprah

Robyn Broyles — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:43:11 -0700

Today I watched the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist appear on the Oprah Winfrey show. The sisters' convent is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and most members of this small Dominican are quite young, with an average age of 26.

I have occasionally watched Oprah, and when she talks about society and values, it's like she is speaking a foreign dialect of English—I can understand her, but it does not come naturally. It's peppered with strange New Age ideas and firmly rooted in the emptiest aspects of our culture. Hearing the sisters speak about living for Christ was like hearing my own language—and from the mouth of a poet. (Let me be clear here... I don't think I, by any means, am a poet in this language.)

Oprah made a great deal of the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience taken by every nun and sister. She clearly understood that while they may seem harsh, they are also, in a way, freeing. Here is a quote from Sister Mary Judith, in response to Oprah's question about what happens when a sister breaks a vow, that explains how the vows are not as foreign to secular life as it might appear at first:

It's an integrated way of life, and I would say even in married life, women, in a sense, have a vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience. They can't just gratify every sexual desire; they can't just go wherever they want when they want to go places; and they have to, in a sense, be spendthrifts so that they can support their families. So religious life is meant to mirror an integrated human life of giving yourself to the other. So to break a vow, is like saying you're not living integrated. You're almost lying to yourself. So you're inflicting your own punishment on yourself.... if, you know, you're cheating on your husband, or you know you're doing this, you're wreaking damage on yourself, and maybe on others.

Ah, the order of preachers. She gave Oprah's entire viewing audience a beautiful homily on living life according to the way we are created.

Image of the Dominican Sisters of Mary in Ann Arbor, Michigan, taken in 2008 by "Joseph." (CC) Some rights reserved (by-nc).

The Tebow Ad: Top Quotes

Robyn Broyles — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 09:20:20 -0700

The pro-life Tebow ad is causing an uproar! Here are some of my favorite over-the-top quotes:

The Los Angeles Times, in an editorial supporting the Tebow ad:

It's obviously reckless to imply that women should risk their own lives for the sake of a fetus....

Is it reckless to imply that women, or men for that matter, should risk their lives for the sake of their children? That emergency workers should risk their lives for the sake of others? Why does the fetus deserve lesser consideration? Well, because to be pro-choice (and the editorial hastily asserts the Times' pro-choice stance, to keep its social-liberal virtue from doubt), you can't consider fetuses as "others," as in other people. Their lives are not valuable.*

Richard Dawkins bashing Tebow in the Washington Post:

I gather that Tim Tebow is extremely good at football. That's just as well, for he certainly isn't very good at thinking. Perhaps the fact that he was home schooled by missionary parents is to blame.

Nice that he threw in that ad hominem attack against Tim Tebow's parents at the end. Reading this whole screed is a great chance to do penance. The reader is subjected to endless insults, gross factual errors (such as the assertion that fetuses do not feel fear and pain like animals do), and straw-man "logic."

Atheist R. Elisabeth Cornwell, also in the Washington Post:

[The ad] will not be based on a reasoned discussion of the issues surrounding abortion, rather it will be an emotional appeal meant to equate a fetus with a fully-grown Heisman-trophy winner.... It is the standard anti-choice sucker punch, and I regard it as utterly misguided if not actively dishonest.

Clearly Dr. Cornwell doesn't "get it." Equating a fetus with a football star, in terms of human rights, is not misguided and dishonest; it is exactly the point. The pro-life position also equates the human rights of a poor, gang-banging minority youth with those of the Queen of England. It equates the human rights of an aging man with advanced Alzheimer's disease with those of a precocious 19-year-old college graduate. The idea underlying the pro-life position is that the mere fact of being a living human organism confers full suite of human rights, including the right to live.

Jimmy Kimmel in a silly pro-choice ad:

They don't all turn out like Tim Tebow.

How this serves as a justification for killing fetuses—they might become antisocial thirty-somethings—escapes reason.

NARAL's lame plan for opposing the Tebow ad's message:

Instead of watching Focus on the Family's ad, for 30 seconds, just focus on… something else.

Put your fingers in your ears and holler, "LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU." And just like Tinkerbell, if you refuse to believe in him, Tim Tebow will just disappear!

*Yes, in any pregnancy, the needs of mother and baby should always be balanced, with the understanding that if mama dies, baby dies anyway. Baby's well-being is not less important than mama's, but it's not more important either.

I'll end with one final thought: GEAUX SAINTS!

Why Tim Tebow's Superbowl Ad is Not Anti-Choice

Robyn Broyles — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:51:03 -0700

I got into a Twitter discussion* earlier this week about Tim Tebow's controversial ad scheduled to be broadcast during Superbowl XLIV. Is the ad really an anti-choice assault on women's rights? Knowing the outline of the ad's content, I frankly did not understand how it could be so, and asked others to fill me in.

The ad tells the story of the circumstances of Heisman Trophy winner and Florida Gator quarterback Tim Tebow's birth. His mother, Pam Tebow, says she was in the Philippines in 1987 while pregnant with him when she contracted an unnamed serious disease. Doctors there urged an abortion on medical grounds, but she refused, and instead Tim was born. The ad is not political and does not address elective abortion at all (Mrs. Tebow was urged to have a medical abortion, not an elective abortion).

The answers to the question, "How is this message anti-choice?" broke down into several categories, but unfortunately none of them, to my mind, actually damages women's rights one iota:

1. Its sponsor is not likeable. The conservative evangelical group Focus on the Family is sponsoring the expensive ad slot. Because of FotF's strong stance against gay marriage and elective abortion, many socially liberal people apparently feel anything affiliated with them is Bad. No thought required. This is the organizational equivalent of an ad hominem attack.

2. It's not fair. The broadcasting network, CBS, had a long-standing policy against controversial ads during the Super Bowl. They have changed this policy to allow broadcast of the Tebow ad, and many of the ad's opponents are upset at the unfairness of it all. Yet there is no reason to believe this is an exception to the policy, rather than the first ad under a changed policy that will allow other controversial ads in the future. And in the end, CBS is a private broadcaster with the right to make whatever content decisions it wants. You can blast CBS, but it doesn't make the ad itself anti-woman.

3. The money should have been spent to help women. This argument is akin to saying the Vatican should sell its priceless cultural treasure and give the money to the poor. In trying to explain, one Twitter participant linked to a blog post about sharing our goods with the poor in general, but I found the post irrelevant to this situation. First, FotF's ministry is primarily about communication and policy, not direct social ministry; second, it does provide grants for crisis pregnancy centers despite the fact that this is not its focus; and third, communicating social support for women who want to choose not to abort is most certainly helpful to women. Nobody is forcing or urging women to make a particular choice, but rather helping them find courage to make a choice that might be opposed by their boyfriends, families, doctors.

4. No good reason, except failure to think on the part of the opponents. The chain of non-logic followed by a small number of the ad's opponents goes like this:

FotF is pro-life.
Therefore anything it does is anti-choice.
Therefore anything that comes out of the organization is anti-choice.

The misleading, divisive term "anti-choice" means, roughly, opposing a woman's right to choose elective abortion. It's misleading because pro-life supporters want women to have as many choices as possible, other than killing her fetus (a "choice" often forced upon her). A pro-life person or group is anti-choice (that is, anti-abortion-choice), but there is much more to being pro-life than just opposing elective abortion. Pro-life people support the right of all humans to life from conception to natural death, and opposes euthanasia, eugenics, assisted suicide, and (usually) the death penalty, at least to some degree. They support civil rights for the disabled, the mentally ill, and anyone unable to speak for him or herself. They provide support for women in crisis pregnancies in order to give them the choice (which they otherwise might not have) not to abort their babies.

Have you heard another argument asserting that the Tebow ad is anti-women or anti-choice?

*You can follow me personally or just blog updates on Twitter.

Who is Archbishop Timothy Dolan?

Robyn Broyles — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:16:51 -0700

The National Catholic Reporter called him "this generation's Fulton Sheen." Sheen, a charismatic defender of the faith, had a popular 1950s television show called "Life is Worth Living." Today, quotes from Sheen are almost as common as quotes from G.K. Chesterton. And while he does not have a national TV show, Dolan has another powerful pulpit: he is the Archbishop of New York.

Archbishop Dolan has the distinction of being described as "theologically conservative" while he himself dismisses the categories of conservative and liberal Catholics. This ironic description puts him right in the same boat with me (or rather, I am in the boat with him). Dismissing liberal and conservative descriptions regarding Church teaching means that obedience to the Church is paramount, while being labelled "conservative" by outsiders (and many insiders) means that others can plainly see that obedience.

Even as the U.S. Church grapples with a shortage of priests and a culture openly hostile to her teachings, we are given many signs of hope: the huge, Eucharist-focused turnout at the National Catholic Youth Conference last month, the upcoming vastly improved translation of the Roman Missal, and the appointment of courageous prelates like Archbishop Timothy Dolan.

Diagnosing Depression from a Snapshot

Robyn Broyles — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:15:43 -0700

A Canadian woman with major depressive disorder so severe she is on long-term sick leave has had her diagnosis declared null and void based on some snapshots. (Read the take from World of Psychology.)

Nathalie Blanchard was told by her doctors to try to do fun things, like go on a beach vacation and go out with friends. She posted photos from these outings on her private Facebook profile. The insurer paying her disability benefits, Manulife, found the photos (exactly how is unclear) and decided she looked happy. Therefore she couldn't be depressed anymore; therefore she would no longer receive benefits.

I'm stunned. This insurance company thinks that a mental disorder can be diagnosed by a snapshot?

Here are a few of the many, many things wrong with drawing this kind of conclusion:

There are many subtypes of depression, each with its own patterns. Atypical depression is characterized by mood reactivity; sufferers can react positively in appropriate situations.
The occasions on which the photos were taken were part of Ms. Blanchard's therapy. They are consistent with the principles of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), whose underlying principle is that if a person does and thinks positive things, the mood will follow—not the other way around. CBT alone is proven to be as effective as medication alone in treating depression, and a combination of the two is more effective still.
People with depression sometimes "fake it." They may put on a happy face to meet the real or imagined expectations of others, even when they don't feel it.
In some cases, a low or depressed mood is not a predominant symptom. For major depressive disorder to be diagnosed, there must be either a low or depressed mood or a significant loss of interest in activities previously enjoyed. A minimum of five symptoms must be present, and the ones that most contribute to disability are difficulty concentrating, extreme fatigue, and a profound lack of motiviation (a "deficit of willpower"). None of these can be detected in a photograph of a smiling person.

The staff at Manulife who were involved in this decision should be ashamed of themselves. And fired, too.

Image credit: Michelle Jones. (CC) Some rights reserved.

Leaving Baby Jayden to Die Was Wrong, But Not Rationed Care

Robyn Broyles — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 08:15:02 -0600

Sarah Capewell of the United Kingdom went into labor when she was 21 weeks and 5 days pregnant. Unfortunately for her and her son, in the U.K., the National Health Service (NHS) has declared that any baby under 23 weeks gestation is non-viable. This rule applies to all babies, including those who, like baby Jayden, have not read the guidelines and have the temerity to be born alive.

Sarah was 2 days shy of the 22-week cutoff for doctors to administer medication to try to stop her early labor. (The reason for the 22-week rule may be because labor, once started, can rarely be delayed for over a week.) Nor would they administer the emergency medication that could have helped Jayden's tiny lungs mature faster.

Nevertheless, Jayden was born alive. And no doctor would lift a finger to help him.

In the United States, thanks to the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, babies of any gestational age who are born alive—even if in the process of an abortion—must be given care. Not so in the U.K.

In Florida, Amillia Sonja Taylor was born in October 2006 just one gestational day older than Jayden. She weighed 26 pounds and was "developmentally progressing very well," according to her mother, reported a Florida news channel on Amillia Taylor's second birthday in 2008. (That's the most recent article I could dig up.) She is recognized as the most premature surviving baby in the world. Perhaps Jayden could have beat her by a day, had NHS doctors given him the chance.

There is no reason to believe, however, that Jayden's shameful neglect resulted from rationed care. The timing of the story, as the U.S. is embroiled in a debate over health care reforms, could not have been worse for the government-run health care cause. Commentator Mark Rienzi, for example, made a tenuous association between Jayden's death under the NHS and the fate of future American preemies under President Obama's health care proposals, administrated by "cost-conscious government bureaucrats." Rienzi presents Jayden's case as the result of "rationed care at the beginning of life." It was not. It was simply bad medicine.

From all accounts, Jayden was not denied treatment because his poor prognosis failed some cost-benefit analysis. It was because the doctors could not see past their insular view that life begins at 23 weeks gestation, darn it, even if empirical evidence in the form of a living infant contradicts that view. Said a hospital spokesman, "Like other acute hospitals, we follow national guidance from the British Association of Perinatal Medicine regarding premature births."

It is an abhorrent case of circular reasoning: Babies born under 23 weeks in the U.K. can't survive, because they are not given care. Therefore, the NHS reasons, babies born under 23 weeks should not be given care because they can't survive.

Rationed care didn't kill baby Jayden, but he was the victim of politics nevertheless. The U.K.'s guidelines on preemie treatment are tied to the nation's abortion debate. According to parenting blogger Rachel Campos-Duffy, "there is genuine concern [in the U.K.] that lowering the viability age of a fetus would trigger another national debate over abortion limits." The maximum gestational age for abortions in the U.K. was changed from 28 weeks to 24 weeks in 1990 in the face of increasing scientific evidence that 24-week fetuses are viable outside the womb.

The 20 Weeks Campaign, a movement to lower Britain's elective abortion limit to babies 20 weeks and younger, says the U.K. has the most liberal abortion laws in Europe, citing an article in the Daily Mail. While the statement is exaggerated (Belgium, for example, does not restrict abortion at any age), it does carry some truth: Germany and Italy restrict abortion-on-demand to the first trimester (about 13 weeks), while Spain and Poland do not allow it at all.

Abortion is always a tragedy, victimizing both an innocent baby and his or her mother. It's doubly tragic that Sarah and Jayden Capewell were abortion victims, too, because Sarah did not seek any kind of abortion at all.

Making Things Up is Not Journalism

Robyn Broyles — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:15:08 -0600

It's a convention of discourse that if you are making something up, you make it clear that your words are fiction.

MSNBC commentators Contessa Brewer and Touré (who, like Beyoncé, affects both a one-word name and an accent mark), as educated people, surely know this. Yet they disgraced themselves—on national television—by making things up while presenting their words as facts.

The incident took place August 18, when they were commenting, along with Dylan Ratigan, on protesters who gathered at an appearance in Phoenix by President Obama. The camera zoomed in on the waist of a man who was wearing several guns to express opposition to gun control. The shot did not reveal any of the man's uncovered skin, but he was in fact African-American. Here are Brewer's astonishing words (with emphasis added):

A man at a pro-health care reform rally just outside wore an automatic assault rifle on his shoulder and a pistol on his hip.... And the reason we're talking about this, a lot of talk here, Dylan, is 'cause yes, people feel like yes there are 2nd amendment rights, for sure, but also there are questions about whether this has racial overtones. I mean, here you have a man of color in the presidency and white people showing up with guns strapped to their waists.

Yeah, she made up the part about the individual under scrutiny being a white person. It fit the invented "racial overtones" story better. (To be fair, there were also white people with guns along with this non-white person with guns.)

Touré then siezed the baton and ran with it:

... [I]t is real that there is tremendous anger in this country about government, the way government seems to be taking over the country, anger about a black person being president. Just several upheavals in the country over the last ten years, from 9-11, to the economic tsunami, to the black man becoming president and you know, you see these hate groups rising up and this is definitely part of that.

Yeah, he made up the part about the protesters being a part of hate groups angry about a black president. They made it quite clear that they were present (guns and all) to support the rights that they feel are guaranteed under the Second Amendment. They don't like gun control, an opinion that clearly crosses racial lines.

The commentary about these protesters and their unnerving accessories is inflammatory, and the fact that they presented them as facts rather than as speculation or opinions disgusts me.

Watch the video clip:

In Defense of Cats

Robyn Broyles — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:40:12 -0600

Mark Shea has gone too far. He is dissing cats!

I like dogs. I really do. But I am, at heart, a Cat Person, and there is no help for it.

Mark's tongue-in-cheek essay points out that good Catholics should strive to be like dogs—ardent servants of their master—rather than like cats, ardent servants of themselves. This is a purely playful article, although I found something more disquieting in a web search: an entirely sincere article concluding that "true Christians" should not own cats. Among the reasons are the fact that cats abuse catnip, are excessively playful, and don't bother to get married in the Church before mating. (I'm not making this up. I won't link to the article because Google warns that the site "may harm your computer," but you can read about the article here: "Are Cats For True Christians?")

Cats were once worshipped as pagan gods. They apparently domesticated themselves for self-serving reasons. They do not fawn over their human companions, which is a big turn-off to people who want their animals to revere them.

But cats have much to recommend them to Christians, as well:

Mother cats are famous for the tender care they give their kittens. Their love and protectiveness for their offspring can be seen as a model of God's love for his people, or of the Blessed Mother's care for us.

Cats come to us without reserve for all their needs. What cat owner hasn't been wakened by a feline who wants food RIGHT NOW? Or had to put aside their activities to pet an insistent, purring cat? Ignoring them does no good. They continue their petitions for as long as it takes, confident that their owner will provide what they need. How many Christians have such faith that God will provide for them?

Cats are unjustly persecuted. Any animal control officer or veterinarian can tell you that stray black cats are in real danger every Halloween. Cats are falsely accused of causing harm by superstitious people, who think they bring bad luck by walking in front of you and steal the breath of life right from an infant's mouth. They suffer this persecution for ignorance's sake, but should remind us that we should be willing to suffer persecution for justice's sake.

And finally, the independent attitude of cats forces their owners to practice pure self-giving love. Having a pet cat is a great way to work on the virtue of humility.

Image Information

Top right: Cats would not make good Christians because they are poorly suited to reading the Bible. Photo by Provencher on Flickr. (CC) Some rights reserved.

Left: A mother cat nursing her kittens. Photo by Vladimir Shioshvili on Flickr. (CC) Some rights reserved.

Bottom right: My sweet black cat Raven, who disappeared one day recently. Fortunately, it was not around Halloween. We miss her.

Think Like a Scientist: Are Boys and Girls Different?

Robyn Broyles — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:50:28 -0600

The Difference Between Men and Women (Not)

Time magazine just published an article whose headline crowed, "Why Girls Have BFFs and Boys Hang Out in Packs." The article opens by mentioning the debate among feminists and scholars about the differences between men and women, then adds that a new study "offers at least one explanation." (Read the NIMH press release.)

What the article seems to imply is this: We now know the brain difference between men and woman that causes women to be the sex more interested in social interactions.

Here is what the study actually shows: In teens and tweens, girls' brains change such that the areas associated with social approach become involved in, well, social approach. Boys' brains at these ages don't undergo similar changes, which is consistent with other research showing that teen boys' social interaction is more group-focused than individual-focused.

And here is what the study does not show: It does not show how male brains (nor, for that matter, female brains) change after age 17. It does not show anything at all about the brain differences between adult men and women. It does not show that girls are more socially astute than boys.

In fact, the study has limitations (there were only 34 subjects, which is a very small sample) and several flaws. Despite an elaborate design aimed at making the kids' brains act normally while in the fMRI machine, the fact is that it's impossible to act completely normal in an fMRI machine. It's loud and claustrophobic, and you know a pack of scientists are studying you.

The information I found (I can't access the actual study, only the abstract) does not show consideration of an even bigger flaw. The researchers noted that younger kids tended to be more interested in same-sex peers, while older kids tended to be more interested in opposite-sex peers. So the older girls' brain activity changed when they were evaluating cute boys instead of potential female friends. Did the researchers account for the fact that girls likely evaluate possible BFs differently than they do possible BFFs?*

What a Research Study Really Means

This case is a perfect illustration of a tendency in the popular media's science reporting. News sources geared toward a general audience have a pattern of reporting the results of studies as new discoveries, not just as additional information in a field. Not only is context often missing, but importance is also dramatically inflated.

The truth about research studies is that to scientists, one small study is nothing but a reason to further investigate a hypothesis. This is especially true in psychology, where there are so many confounding variables. Many studies of many people, from diverse backgrounds, performed in multiple centers by many different researchers, must be conducted and analyzed (called a meta-analysis) before generalizations can safely be made.

Careful reading of the wording of the Time article shows that technically, the details are reported correctly. But people who gets their science news from Time usually don't read articles carefully. The impression is that the new study definitively shows brain differences between not only adolescents, but also adults of different sexes, as an across-the-board generalization.

The moral of the story is that people should receive all science news with a proverbial grain of salt. Be skeptical about results that don't pass "the smell test." And if you really want to know, find out what scientists, not reporters, are saying about it. Relying on popular sources is a great way to be chronically misinformed.

*(Don't have regular texted conversations with a teen? Here's a translation: BF is boyfriend; BFF is best friend forever.)