Catholic Abuse News - The Pope's Attack Dog Is Snarling Again

Bill Donohue, Catholic League President
The Pope's Pit Bull

Let Activists Dig Ireland's “Mass Grave” – Catholic League

The self-appointed Pope's pit bull, president of the American Catholic League, Bill Donohue is snarling and yapping again. This time, it is to mock and denigrate those trying to uncover the full horror of exactly what happened at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Galway, Ireland at the hands of sisters of the Catholic Bon Secours order, and give their victims a decent burial.

Readers will remember how, shortly after the release of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report into the long history of child abuse and cover-up in the state, Donohue tried to defend the Catholic Church basically with four repugnant arguments:

1. They weren't all priests.
2. It was the homosexuals that did it.
3. A lot of the children were pubescent therefore, even if they were below the age of consent, it wasn't really paedophilia.
4. It wasn't always rape; it was often 'just' molestation.

He condemned that report as "a total myth" ^(PDF); a term he uses for the discovery of a mass grave containing the bodies of children at Tuam.

Note the title of Donohue's article published four days ago: 'Let Activists Dig Ireland's “Mass Grave”'. The inverted commas around 'Mass Grave' , intended to convey the idea that its existence is just hearsay; not proven. This sets the entire tenor of the article which is accompanied by a photograph clearly intended to be taken as a photograph of the actual (amateurish) excavation but bearing no resemblance to it.

I'll let Bill Donohue condemn himself with his own words:

Catherine Corless is the typist responsible for floating the “mass grave” hoax in Tuam, Ireland. She is back in the news, this time for blasting the Bon Secours sisters for not forking up enough cash to pay for an exhumation of an alleged “mass grave” of children’s remains she says exists on the grounds of the sisters’ Mother and Baby Home. Ireland’s Minister of Children, Katherine Zappone, is behind the effort to see what is buried in the grounds.

Catherine Corless was born in Tuam and had first-hand experience of the sisters of the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home. She is an amateur local historian (and has never pretended otherwise) who was responsible for uncovering the fact that, although 796 children were recorded as having died at the home, there were no records of burials. She has received a number of awards for her work including a People of the Year award this year. Far from being a hoax, as Donohue falsely claims, the Bon Secours order has accepted their responsibility for it and agreed to contribute towards the exhumation and reburial with the respect they were denied at the hands of sisters of the order.

In March 2017, the Irish Government's Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes reported finding significant quantities of human remains at the site of the home.

The nuns have offered to pay almost $3 million toward the digging, an amount that Corless predictably says is too “meager.” She says the sisters have “private hospitals all over the place” and should pay much more.

In other words, the typist wants to drain money from the sick and dying today to pay for her wild goose chase about an incident that allegedly took place a hundred years ago.

In other words, the nuns have accepted their responsibility for the 'mythical' mass grave and the inhumane, callously disrespectful disposal of their victims of neglect and abuse; the argument is about how much they should pay.

And we have another lie - that taking a share of the profits from private hospitals is draining money from sick and dying. A vicious attack on a woman who has worked assiduously to provide a little dignity and respect to victims of Donohue's church and in stark contrast to Donohue's callous indifference highlighted by his phrase, 'allegedly took place a hundred years ago'. In other words, "Who cares? It was all a long time ago anyway!"

Well, clearly, decent people do care, if only to ensure it never happens again, by never again allowing Catholic nuns that degree of unaccountable power over vulnerable children.

The nuns should pay nothing. Let the activists like Corless in Ireland, and the Church-bashing activists in the United States like Irish Central, pony up first, then rip the Irish taxpayers for the remainder.

For two reasons, this will never happen: the nuns are too humble, and those who hate the Church—they hate its teachings on sexuality—simply want to soak it. These people are not motivated by justice for children—they are motivated by revenge. That is a sin, though in their eyes it is a virtue.

So, other people should pay for the excesses of Catholic nuns - and anyway, it's all really about sex!

Bill Donohue isn't in the least obsessed with sex or motivated by seeking revenge on those who exposed the evil that hides behind Catholicism of course. Perhaps he just has a hatred for typists. This isn't the first time that Donohue has launched a personal attack on Corless. In May 2017 he wrote:

The first myth concerns her [Corless'] expertise. Contrary to what virtually all news reports have said, Corless is not a historian: she not only does not have a Ph.D. in history, she doesn’t have an undergraduate degree. She is a typist. Her part-time course on historical research may impress some, but to those who know better, a high school equivalency diploma carries more weight.

It was in 2014 when Corless first received media attention about her alleged discovery of a “mass grave.” At that time she was referred to by most media outlets as a “local historian.” That’s a new one on me.

I have a Ph.D. in sociology. No one has ever called me a “local sociologist.” For that matter, I have never heard of a “local biologist” or a “local mathematician.” Moreover, I have worked with many historians, and none has ever called himself a “local,” “regional,” or “national” historian. He’s just a historian, by virtue of his credentials.

Corless has no credentials, yet that hasn’t stopped the media from recently inflating her status again. To wit: She went from being a “local historian” in 2014 to being a full-blown “historian” in 2017. The following media outlets now call her a “historian”: Daily Mirror, Irish Daily Mail, Irish Independent, Irish Times, Newstalk and The Journal. In the United States, Irish Central and Irish Voice have followed suit.

In his eagerness to denigrate Corless, local Catholic League president Donohue appears to have overlooked the fact that a local historian studies local history, i.e. the history of a local area such as the town of Tuam or even the local history of an institution such as the Mother and Baby Home - a person like Catherine Corless, for example. Neither Corless nor anyone else has ever claimed that she is a qualified, professional academic historian. That is a myth of Donohue's invention; a straw man of his own creation to give him a target to throw his stones at.

And of course it has nothing to do with the validity of the evidence she has uncovered. This is a pure ad hominem personal attack; an attempt to dismiss the message by abusing the messenger.

What provoked this latest frenzied outpouring of lies and hate was the news that the Irish Children's Minister, Katherine Zappone, had approached Pope Francis on his recent visit to Ireland, where he personally apologise for the abuses that Donohue calls 'mythical', to ask that the Catholic Church (not the Bon Secours order with its hospital profits as Donohue falsely claims) should contribute towards the estimated between €6-million and €13-million ($3.42-million and $6.84-million) cost of a forensic examination of the site.

The Pope has yet to respond to this request from a minister of the government of his then host country.

Meanwhile, his american snarling pit bull continues to display good Catholic compassion, humanity and contrition for past abuses by snarling lies, denigration and callous disregard for truth, human dignity and common respect for fellow human being.

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