Because of the instantaneous nature of news, even before the news has the actual facts, rumors, false stories and innuendo circulate first and these are the impressions that people keep as there is seldom a follow-up on how the news reports got it wrong.
Take Father Fr. Geraldo Pinero of Philadelphia. On Saturday it was reported and picked up by internet sources that the Feds had investigated him and that they had entered his rectory and taken his computer and other things that belonged to him.
As a result of this, the good father stepped down immediately as pastor of his parish. This opened the door to even more rumors and speculation.
Guess what the presumed charges would be. That he was involved with child pornography and possibly a pedophile.
That's what we have to put up with today.
Well, it turns out that it wasn't child pornography but it was still serious enough to garner a federal investigation and his stepping down as pastor.
READ THE ACTUAL TRUTH HERE!
I ask, does this deserve to be any more than a local story. Does it really need to be an international one?
6 comments:
So, why are we adding fuel to the fire by posting htis here?
Because the truth is bad enough? And it clears up any misreporting that makes it sound more serious?
This looks like plain old bad judgement here. I'm not sure what he was doing was all that bad if he simply didn't know this was a bad use of money. These things are usually run by recruits, so he probably was talked into thinking this was a good deal. He could have been hawking Amway instead.
There is an overly strict rule applied for working the US Government that says you must avoid impropriety or the *appearance* of impropriety. As a result you can not give a cup of coffee to a government worker lest he be accused of swaying the next space station contract to your favour. Priests are held to very high standards and people will look for improper activity and manufacture it where they can't find it. I think this is from setting the bar too high: could he have been able to earn evil lucre in another way if the archdiocese was less strict? Just a thought.
rcg
OMG!
So are you going to, in the interests of fairness, transparency and justice, make a big deal out of it, and post all the details, every time a member of the clergy IS done for pornography / pedophilia?
No, because other websites do that, but seldom come back to exonerate the few that are innocent. I'm thinking in particular of Abuse Tracker.
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