Portland, Ore., Apr 5, 2010 / 09:01 am
Responding to an anti-Catholic column penned by Eugene Joseph Dionne and an editorial cartoon portraying the Holy Father as deaf to abuse claims, Portland Archbishop John Vlazny has canceled his subscription to The Oregonian newspaper and asked Catholic pastoral ministers to do the same.
Archbishop Vlazny decried a March 31 editorial in the newspaper, a piece by syndicated Washington Post columnist Eugene Joseph (E.J.) Dionne and a cartoon by The Oregonian's Jack Ohman depicting Pope Benedict XVI responding, “say what?” to demands that he “do something about pedophile priests.”
“The editors arrogantly scolded the church for its past failures in handling this matter of child abuse and, in an insulting and unfair attack, chose this most holy time of the year – during our church's 'Year of the Priest' - to connect the practice of celibacy among our clergy with the problem of sexual abuse, when everyone knows that most abusers by far are married persons!” wrote Archbishop Vlazny in a message e-mailed to diocesan priests.
The 73-year-old archbishop then described Ohman's editorial cartoon as “a portrayal dripping with hostility, an attack against our high priest, our universal pastor, our faithful teacher, the one person who, in the eyes of the world, symbolizes all that we are and do as Catholics.”