Dear Ms. Levine:
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The anonymous article on the May 21, 1999, cover of the Chicago Reader entitled “History of Abuse” and written by “William K.” has perhaps forged a new standard (or substandard) in journalism to which the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights takes exception. In addition to the offensive, blasphemous illustration on the newspaper’s cover–that of a blindfolded priest held out as the sacred Eucharist–even the most detached observer would question a newspaper’s judgment in choosing to print (highlight, actually) an anonymously written article on a sensitive, potentially damaging subject, pedophilia, that is premised entirely upon repressed memory. Worse yet, it appears that the Reader made no attempt to corroborate or verify any of the events or sources contained in the article.
Patrick C. Cremin Jr.
In questioning the Reader’s journalistic integrity for printing “History of Abuse” under a pseudonym, you were laboring under the incorrect assumption that my story was anonymously written and submitted. It was not.
