The New York Times has been singled out as “unfair” (ahem) for its coverage of the Pope’s blame/knowledge/involvement in the cover up of serial sex abuser Father Lawrence C Murphy.

Here’s how the NYTimes reports on itself …

Vatican Official Defends Pope’s Handling of Case

31 March 2010 VATICAN CITY — A top Vatican official issued a detailed defense of Pope Benedict XVI’s handling of sexual abuse cases and extensively criticized The New York Times’s coverage, both in its news and editorial pages, as unfair to the pope and the church.

In a rare interview and a 2,400-word statement posted Wednesday on the Vatican Web site, the official, Cardinal William J. Levada, an American who heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, praised Pope Benedict for vigorously investigating and prosecuting sexual abuse cases. He said The Times’s coverage had been “deficient by any reasonable standards of fairness.”

Oh dear.

As I said earlier: There’s something about a cover-up that offends us …

Still, give those who feel aggrieved the right to be heard ( — like, say, Father Murphy’s VICTIMS???) Perhaps the Pope is copping it a bit … but there’s decades of pent up frustration about the abusive, secretive culture of these ‘holy’ orders of men that HAS to be expressed.

On the allegation of ‘unfairness’ (sometimes thrown at me by ‘excitable’ people — but never with any details, usually just howls of outrage):

The Wolf - from 'Hoodwinked' (image: IMDb.com)


Patrick Warburton’s ‘The Wolf’ character in the delightfully multi-layered movie ‘Hoodwinked’ had this wonderful line which journos and ex-journos all over the world must have grunted in assent:

Chief Grizzly: Pretty thin Wolf! You say the old lady was already tied up. How did that happen?

The Wolf: I don’t know, maybe to make herself look innocent. I just write the news Chief, I don’t make it.

Amen.