Catholic fury over The Times's coverage of Pope Benedict XVI

By Damian Thompson
March 13th, 2010

There is international outrage in Catholic circles over a headline in The Times this morning that many people regard as utterly misleading and part of the newspaper’s reliably biased coverage (reinforced by vicious cartoons) of anything to do with Pope Benedict XVI.

The headline, over a story by Richard Owen, reads: “Pope knew priest was paedophile but allowed him to continue with ministry.” A universally admired Catholic journalist contacted me this morning and accused The Times of (and I am toning this down for legal reasons) an extremely serious error of judgment.

Another respected commentator, the American journalist Phil Lawler, takes the headline to pieces on CatholicCulture.org. This is what he has to say:

Count on the London Times to offer the most sensational coverage of a news story involving the Catholic Church. The headline on today’s report by Richard Owen screams:

Pope knew priest was paedophile but allowed him to continue with ministry

That’s grossly misleading, downright irresponsible. the rest