Catholic League “Debunks” Pennsylvania Molestation Scandal: It’s Not Rape When The Child Isn’t Penetrated

Catholic League president Bill Donohue today posted a lengthy “debunking” of media reports about the still-unfolding and massive molestation scandal wracking the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania.

Donohue’s missive includes his usual charges of anti-Catholic bigotry and personal attacks on “salacious” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro.

There’s also this:

Shapiro said that “Church officials routinely and purposely described the abuse as horseplay and wrestling and inappropriate contact. It was none of those things.” He said it was “rape.”

Similarly, the New York Times quoted from the report saying that Church officials used such terms as “horseplay” and “inappropriate contact” as part of their “playbook for concealing the truth.”

Fact: This is an obscene lie. Most of the alleged victims were not raped: they were groped or otherwise abused, but not penetrated, which is what the word “rape” means. This is not a defense — it is meant to set the record straight and debunk the worst case scenarios attributed to the offenders.

Furthermore, Church officials were not following a “playbook” for using terms such as “inappropriate contact” — they were following the lexicon established by the John Jay professors.

Donohue goes on to denounce the media for using the term “pedophilia” to describe the incidents when, Donohue claims, most of the victims were “postpubescent.”

And, as he always does, Donohue rants that the media is providing cover for the LGBT movement by not describing the assailants as “gay priests” and by sensationalizing the “minority” of cases involving preteen girls.