Sunday, June 27, 2010

Why am I getting news from Kenya?

I went to Google News today and typed in "catholic". In the top 10 results was an article about a Catholic priest who raped a girl. I'm in Canada, but this article is from Kenya! What's shocking about this is that there are thousands of rapes all over the world, but you don't hear about them. In fact, unless you live in a very tiny community, you probably wouldn't even hear about a rape in your own city. How often do you think the Toronto Star would publish an article that says "16 year old girl raped."? Not very likely. But if a priest is the perpetrator, geography doesn't seem to matter. It could be in Timbuktu, and newspapers all over the world would publish it. How did this article appear in the top 10 results for Catholic on Google News? We're usually lucky if we hear about a murder, since news has become so sensationalized, yet they publish a story from Africa about one rape case.

Of course, this cannot be a case of media bias, right?

2 comments:

  1. Did you ever think it's because the Church, as well as priests, do nothing but claim they're on a higher moral ground than everyone else, and say they're the ones who should guide everyone else's moral compass? So when something as immoral rape is committed by a priest it's that much more terrible in the media's eyes.

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  2. Wha...What? "We're usually lucky if we hear about a murder" Interesting language.
    An isolated rape in your home city is a tragedy. The decades of institutionalized rape of children by Catholic priests around the world and the subsequent complicity and coverup by the Catholic church make it a bit more of a scoop. Maybe if priests were allowed to have sex like the rest of us and if people who are attracted to children were allowed to work through their problems and receive counseling without being stigmatized and punished, we wouldn't have pedophiles becoming priests in hopes of perpetually bottling up their urges, then becoming celibate and eventually exploding...into an altar boy.

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