The job of a state attorney general is to prosecute crimes. Pretty understandable, eh?
Yet, when Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell proudly stood before cameras for a Sept. 30 press conference, it was not to announce that she would be prosecuting any crimes. Rather, Campbell’s press conference was to announce that her office had spent the last seven years to complete a 203-page history report chronicling alleged abuse by Catholic priests from many decades ago.
If you’re wondering what possible new revelations this report could have contained, as there has not been a single new piece of news in the Catholic sex abuse story for the last two decades, you’re not alone. Indeed, Campbell’s report did not cite a single prosecutable crime by a priest or bishop in recent decades.
Nothing New Under the Sun
Campbell’s report spotlights alleged abuse committed by priests in the Massachusetts dioceses of Worcester, Fall River, and Springfield. Yet even a cursory review of the report reveals that the stories told within are merely retellings of stories that were already loudly trumpeted in the media many decades ago.
For example, the report contains a lengthy “victim statement” from a man who claims to have been assaulted by the notorious criminal ex-priest James Porter in the sixties. The same James Porter who left active ministry in 1970 and was laicized in 1974, over a half century ago. The same James Porter who was the subject of extensive nationwide media coverage and some five dozen news articles in the Boston Globe just in 1992 alone, 34 years ago. The same James Porter who dropped dead in 2005, 21 years ago.
Then there is a statement from the brother of the late SNAP activist, Phil Saviano, who claimed to have been abused by a priest “in the early sixties,” 65 years ago. If Phil were alive today, he would be 74 years old.
The Boston Globe Seeks Relevance
If anything, in spending seven years to complete a report that did not yield any prosecutable crimes, AG Campbell simply reinforced the fact that the Catholic Church has done more to rectify for its past sins than any other organization on the planet. Her report also raised important questions:
—Who authorized such a large expenditure of law enforcement funds to produce a report with no prosecutable crimes?
—Does Campbell have any plans to go after the rampant sex abuse happening today in other institutions, such as public schools?
Yet in the eyes of the most anti-Catholic newspaper in America, the Boston Globe, such questions were not even worth exploring. Rather, the Globe treated Campbell’s junky broadside against the Church as an unparalleled law enforcement triumph, with the Globe publishing no fewer than seven articles about it. Indeed, given the Globe’s long history of animosity against the Church, Campbell’s report likely had editor Brian McGrory downright giddy.
In the end, the great C.J. Doyle at the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts said it best. Campbell’s report was a “cheap shot” and a “self-aggrandizing exercise by a Planned Parenthood-endorsed elected official, who has long viewed the Catholic Church as an ideological adversary.”
There you go. Same as it ever was.
First published on The Media Report website.
Photo Credit: The American TFP Photo Archive