Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS

The liberal New York Times, which has been “a bastian of male entitlement” since its beginnings, published an article this week accusing the Church of undervaluing women in spite of the fact that their own track record with women is not exactly sterling.

In another one of their epic screeds against the Catholic Church, the Times published an oped on Wednesday by Frank Bruni who once again takes up the beaten-to-death old feminist mantras of how the Church is sexist because women can’t be priests and how the Vatican is nothing more than a “bastian of male entitlement”.

Bruni was responding to Pope Francis’ outrage that women were denied equal pay, saying that the pope left out the part about how women don’t even get “equal work” in the Church because they can’t be priests.

“Pay isn’t the primary issue when the symbolism, ritualism and vocabulary of an institution exalt men over women and when challenges to that imbalance are met with the insistence that what was must always be – that habit trumps enlightenment and good sense,” he writes.

From the sounds of his hit piece, the only person in need of enlightenment and good sense is Mr. Bruni who really ought to get his facts from reliable sources – such as authentic Catholic theology rather than the tortured interpretations of the liberal medial.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue has another piece of advice for Bruni – he who lives in a glass house ought not to throw stones.

Jill Abramson

“The Times has a notorious record of undervaluing women,” Donohue writes in a brutally honest rebuttal to Bruni’s article. “Indeed, it worked hard to deny women the right to vote in 1920, a bit of history its everyday readers would find hard to believe.”

He goes on to report that of the 29 senior positions listed on the masthead of the Times today, 66 percent are filled by men. Of the six top jobs – publisher, chairman, executive editor, editorial page editor, chief executive editor and chief information officer – men control all of them.

“The lowest on the totem pole, secretary, is occupied by a woman,” he states.

He then launches into a fascinating recount of the Times “incestuous” hiring practices that have been controlled for more than a century by two powerful families – the Ochses and the Sulzbergers.

In fact, it wasn’t until 2011 that the Times hired the first woman to run the newspaper – Jill Abramson – then fired her three years later, only to replace her with a man.

Lo and behold, it soon came to light that Abramson was blatantly discriminated against.

“Indeed, she was paid considerably less than the male editor who preceded her, Bill Keller. This was no fluke: when she succeeded Keller as managing editor, she also received less than him in pay and pension benefits. None of this sat well with females at the Times. Then it was learned that a former managing editor of news operations, John Geddes, was also making more money than Abramson. When her lawyer inquired about the disparity, the alarms went off.”

The only other woman in a high position at the Times was Janet Robinson, the first female hired to run the Times company, which she did well for many years until her relationship with Sulzberger soured. She was fired in 2011 and given a severance of $24 million. Naturally, she was replaced by a man.

“These are not mere anecdotes,” Donohue writes. “Just one year ago, the Women’s Media Center rated the nation’s top ten newspapers on gender hiring and the New York Times was dead last: it had the biggest gender gap — 69 percent of the bylines went to men.”

This sad record could explain why the paper was sued for sex discrimination in the 1970s and was forced to settle with 560 female employees.

Donohue concludes with a very pointed question to Bruni and his guy-pals at the Times: “The Catholic Church has biblical reasons, beginning with Jesus, for its teachings on ordination. What reason, other than prejudice, does The New York Times have for undervaluing women?”

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