Nothing Less Than Animus

Earlier this afternoon, our senior editor R. R. Reno examined, with the analytical skill of a biblical scholar (a good biblical scholar), the bias of the New York Times ’ latest coverage of Benedict and his role in the sex abuse scandal. The title How Do You Spell Tendentious? gives you the idea.

He is not the only one to find the Times unfair to point of obvious bigotry. The National Catholic Reporter , a weekly not known as an ardent defender of Benedict or the Vatican, has done so as well. In Contra the Times , Michael Sean Winters begins:

This morning’s New York Times “expose” regarding then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s role in the Vatican’s response to the clergy sex abuse crisis exposes more than it intended. It exposes the fact that the authors, Laurie Goodstein and David Halbfinger, and their editors, do not understand what they are talking about and, at times, put forward such an unrelentingly tendentious report, it is difficult to attribute it to anything less than animus.