To the editor:

Hardly a day has gone by when the Lawrence Journal-World has not published a story or an editorial criticizing the Roman Catholic church for the recent sex abuse scandal. In Friday’s paper, half of the columns you published (including your personal editorial) criticized the Catholic Church. I agree this scandal is terrible and the fact that a few of the church’s hierarchy attempted to hide it is distressing. As such, I understand this story is considered newsworthy. However, your newspaper has gone far beyond accurately covering this story and has clearly entered overkill/bashing territory.

What makes the Journal-World’s prejudicial coverage of the Catholic scandal appalling is your failure to report other abuse scandals. On June 13, I read an Associated Press story on CNN.com about teachers sexually abusing students: “Clergy scandal overshadows teacher-student sex cases.” This article reported there are several hundred teacher abuse incidents reported each year. Given there are many more teacher-student abuse incidents than priest-parishioner and that children spend more time with teachers, why don’t half of your editorials criticize teachers and how schools handle incidents of abuse? Why is the teacher-student abuse scandal not on the front page of your paper every day? Where are the articles and editorials concerning other religions and their abuse scandals? Is it politically correct to bash Catholics, but not teachers, Protestants, Jews, Buddhists or other religions?

Your mission statement claims that the Journal-World stands for unbiased and accurate journalism you should reread your mission statement.

Michael Burrichter,
Lawrence