Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Even though the media can’t get enough of allegations that the Catholic Church may have surgically castrated “as many as 10 young men” in the 1950s, what most news stories aren’t revealing is that it was the Dutch government who ordered the castration of over 400 men during the same time period as part of a eugenics program.
Henk Heithuis
Newsbusters is reporting that the story, reported by The New York Times under the headline, “Dutch Church is accused of castrating young men,” concerns a man named Henk Heithuis who lived in Catholic institutions from infancy. At the age of 20, when he complained about sexual abuse to the police, he was transferred to a Catholic psychiatric hospital before being admitted to the St. Joseph Hospital in Veghel, where he was castrated. The article claims new evidence has surfaced in the case which suggests that as many as 10 young men suffered the same fate as Heithuis.
These explosive statements are made at the beginning of the article and it’s only after reading further when it becomes clear that a) there is no new evidence and, b) a government commission charged with investigating the reports concluded that they did not have sufficient evidence to support the charges.
In spite of these facts, a friend of Heithuis went to the Dutch press last week and gave his account of the story – which the press proceeded to broadcast throughout the world with little or no fact-checking to back it up.
George Conger of GetReligion did some investigating of his own and discovered that 400 men were castrated in the Netherlands between 1938 and 1968 as part of a government eugenics effort. In other words it was the Dutch government that was ultimately responsible for making the castration decision.
Not a single news outlet reported on this rather important fact.
“Could the Catholic Church order the castration of a young man?” Conger asks. “How was that possible?”
He goes on to conclude: “Professionally this is sloppy work. It is also offensive. The Catholic pedophile scandal in Holland is a horrific case of abuse, betrayal and evil. Tossing the incendiary charge of castration into this cesspit of moral corruption cheapens the suffering of those who were abused. It tells the true victims of abuse, ‘well it could have been worse, you could have been castrated’.”
Dave Pierre, writing for Newsbusters, agrees. “In yet another attempt to discredit the Catholic Church, the media has misled readers by not putting this story in its proper context and proportion. In other words, business as usual.”
© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace® http://www.womenofgrace.com
