As the UVA rape story hyped by Rolling Stone falls apart, Ralph Cipriano at Big Trial notes that the author of the Rolling Stone story was involved in another story that may have sent three innocent priests and a teacher to prison:
In the University of Virginia “gang rape” story, the media rushed in and tried and convicted the wrongdoers. When Rolling Stone issued its apology for the Jackie story, managing editor Will Dana noted that Jackie “had spoken of the assault in campus forums.” Just because a victim tells his or her story over and over again, with all the sensational details, it doesn’t make it true. Especially after Jackie’s friends noticed that the details were changing. In the Erdely store about Billy Doe, the writer referred to the former altar boy as “a sweet, gentle kid with boyish good looks” who was “outgoing and well-liked” before the brutal attacks turned him into a sullen, drug-addicted loner.
Go here to read the rest. Trials that take place in an atmosphere of hysteria almost always lead to massive injustice. The hysteria whipped up over abusive priests, aided and abetted by anti-Catholicism and simple greed, has fostered a witch hunt atmosphere in which innocent priests have suffered. Predator priests and the bishops who protected them deserve severe criminal punishment, but their misdeeds have led to manifestly innocent priests paying for crimes they did not commit.
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Remember when the media was inventing stories of day care providers who sexually abused children during satanic rituals? Those stories turned out to be fake. People went to jail. We should figure out a way to send the media to jail when they do this sort of thing.
I’m dealing with a situation like this in my own family. I know the accused person (not a priest btw) is innocent. The accuser is dividing the family by forcing them to chose between her and the falsely accused person. She has even affected my own marriage. She suffers from serious mental problems, which I’m convinced is driving these hysterical attacks on my innocent relative. Please pray for her, pray to St. Dymphna to intercede for this poor young women before she destroys my family beyond repair. If you don’t know who St. Dymphna is, go to http://www.nalshrinestdymphna.org and learn about this saint.