Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
As if Americans don’t have enough to worry about in the wake of the historic credit downgrade by Standard & Poor, Time Magazine used the occasion to besmirch Catholics.
According to the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, the opening sentence in an article written by Time Magazine’s assistant managing editor Bill Saporito, entitled, “Why Congress and S&P Deserve Each Other,” went something like this:
“Having Standard & Poor’s downgrade the creditworthiness of the U.S., and warn the country about further downgrades, is a little like having the Catholic Church lecture Scout leaders on the proper behavior toward boys.”
Catholic League president Bill Donohue responded by demanding an apology:
“This vicious, and wholly gratuitous, smear of the entire Catholic Church demands an apology. Vicious analogies citing other demographic groups—on this same subject—could have been made, but they would never have been published. Which means that persons other than Saporito should also issue an apology to Roman Catholics. We might expect this kind of cruel remark from some no-name angry blogger, but not from a high-ranking person at Time.”
Instead of focusing on the real issues, such as why the president they featured on their cover so many times I’ve lost count was unable to come up with a viable plan to solve the debt problem and, for that matter, was MIA during most of the crisis, they wasted their ink on dragging the totally unrelated sex abuse scandal into the discussion.
How’s that for “fair and honest” reporting?
Thus far, no apology has been forthcoming. What a surprise.
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