Standing Up for What’s Right

Relevant to “In the Cultural Crosshairs” (front page, Feb. 3 issue): I take this opportunity to express my great displeasure at the speed with which the Covington Catholic Diocese (Kentucky) and Catholic high school threw their own young men under the proverbial (school) bus before the media’s and press’ narrative of this unfortunate incident was thoroughly discredited.

Much subsequent reporting and many objective accounts discredit and debunk the narrative the secular national media and press would have people believe that comports with their political agenda. These young men did nothing wrong — nothing — and the Covington Diocese after the fact apologized to them for their premature sellout, from what I can only conclude comes from bald-faced fear of uncomfortable consequences and blowback from the dark side of today’s media and press.

Very shortly after the incident, a Covington diocesan statement said, “The matter is being investigated ...” Yet the diocese initially took a position against these young men — still “only” high-school students — clearly before the incident was actually investigated to find out the facts and specific information about what exactly took place. Did the diocese — out of “pastoral concern” — not instinctively know what today’s secular press and media would do to these young men and their families? In today’s political climate — unfortunately in our United States — Catholics need to show a good bit more spine and backbone to stand up to these people who will show no mercy in viciously attacking Catholicism along with our morals, beliefs and practices.

That is why I am so disappointed in reading about the Diocese of Covington’s abdication of responsibility to defend these young men, as they have nothing to be ashamed of in their behavior in Washington, D.C. While being respectful, truthful and temperate with our responses, we still do not need to, nor should we be expected to, “turn the other cheek” for what we believe and how we act. In more secular terms, “man up.”

         Chris J. Krisinger

         Colonel, USAF (Ret.)

               Burke, Virginia