Catholic League: "The View" Sports Bigotry

From the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights:

October 27, 2006

“THE VIEW” SPORTS BIGOTRY

Catholic League president Bill Donohue commented on today’s edition of the ABC-TV show, “The View”:

“As we have recounted several times before, there is an anti-Catholic animus evident among the panelists on ‘The View,’ with Rosie O’Donnell and Joy Behar being the worst offenders. Today they were at it again, trotting out the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church one more time. The occasion for their outburst was an exchange they had with their guest, Amy Berg, the director of ‘Deliver Us From Evil,’ a recent documentary on the scandal that was a box-office bomb.

“When Behar said that the molesting priests were pedophiles, not gays, she was either lying or mistaken. This is not a matter of opinion—it is simply wrong to pretend that pedophilia is the problem. As any honest person who has seen the data knows, the majority of the victims were postpubescent, not little kids. And since 81 percent of the victims were male, and 100 percent of the victimizers were male, the problem is one of homosexuality, not pedophilia.

“Another lie or mistake was made when O’Donnell said, and Berg concurred, that ‘The current pope was the person who was supposed to investigate these charges of sex abuse in the Church in the last 20 years.’ As a matter of fact, when Pope Benedict XVI was Cardinal Ratzinger, he was not appointed to deal with this problem until 2002—after the scandal hit the newspapers.

“Barbara Walters stands behind all this bigotry—it’s her show.”

Contact the executive producer of “The View,” Bill Geddie, at bill.geddie@abc.com.