Self-righteous Finger-pointing New Times LA offends the Catholic community

Self-righteous Finger-pointing
New Times LA offends the Catholic community
By Concepcion B. Leiva

Published on LatinoLA: September 9, 2002


One more time New Times LA, the locally-based weekly newspaper, harassed and attacked our Catholic community with a cover page caricature of Cardinal Roger Mahoney.

For the last months, I've patiently watched New Times' weekly coverage of the Catholic Church's child abuse scandals to find that, rather than offering constructive criticism to help promote positive changes, the newspaper has resorted to producing incoherent articles and demeaning caricatures as an opportunity to poke fun at the symbols of our Catholic community.

A few days before the opening of the Cathedral, New Times LA published yet another cover story, with an illustration depicting Cardinal Mahoney flashing himself while showing the image of our new Cathedral, bearing our sacred symbol of the cross as cover for his private parts.

This time New Times LA went too far. They not only showed a total lack of respect toward our representatives, but also towards our sacred symbols and our new temple. It is clear that for this publication, we Catholics are not worth the respect.
New Times LA has gone out of its way to focus its criticism on a few bad priests rather than recognizing the fact that finally, the Church has taken the necessary measures to make effective and long overdue changes, energetically supported by Cardinal Mahoney.

The Catholic Church has left a tremendous legacy to humanity. It has sent missionaries to the most remote and dangerous, of places to establish missions. One such example is the labor of Junipero Serra, Crespi, Lauzan, and others, who established the back bone of our state's development: the California Missions.

Why doesn't New Times LA show us the deserved respect? Furthermore, why doesn't New Times LA use its supposedly astute reporting by turning it on itself? Perhaps investigating the sinister world of the so-called sex industry whose advertisements fill pages and pages of their magazine, including among these, "escort services" notoriously known as camouflages for prostitution.

I find it ridiculous that New Times LA boasts a self-righteous, finger-pointing attitude when in fact they are hypocrites.

If a publication of this nature continues to produce yellow, cheap, journalism, while the country goes through crisis after crisis, I foresee for them a short life expanse.

In the end, the Church will continue standing, we Catholics will continue supporting it, and Cardinal Mahoney will go down in history for promoting changes in Church policy and overseeing the construction of our beautiful Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.