A study in contrasts - killer priest

Those of you from places other than Minnesota and western Wisconsin may not have heard about the truly shocking case of - hold on to your chair - the double-murdering homosexual pedophile Catholic priest from Hudson, WI. It's hard to even type the words, but it's true.

I'll link to the stories so you can read them, but this post isn't about the story per se. It's about how the story is reported. Specifically, it's about how the story is reported in the Red Star (Minneapolis Star Tribune) vs. the St. Paul Pioneer Press, our two major papers in Minnesota.

Here's the Red Star: "Priest likely was killer, judge finds".
Here's the Pioneer Press: "Judge: Priest was funeral home killer".

The difference in the reporting is actually quite stunning, and is fairly obvious when you read one and then the other. Rambix first read the Red Star report this morning. That report fleshed out some surprising details that were suppressed by the court until now.

Later this afternoon Rambix read the Pioneer Press story. It was like reading about a different event. The Pioneer Press revealed truly shocking details that the Red Star omitted.

The Red Star report was very general. There is vague information on the pedophile angle:

Also Monday, a man who appeared to be about 20 testified haltingly that on about 10 occasions when he was 17 he was "touched sexually" by Erickson, who invited him to the rectory at St. Patrick's. He said that Erickson gave him liquor. Authorities said after the hearing that they found no evidence that O'Connell knew about the youth. Police learned about the teenager when he was at college in Bismarck, N.D., in 2003 and told police there that the priest had given him alcohol. He later disclosed the sexual touching. [Red Star]

Sounds bad, right? Well, here's some test from the Pioneer Press account:

HUDSON, Wis. — There is overwhelming evidence that the Rev. Ryan Erickson killed two men in a Hudson funeral home in 2002, a St. Croix County judge said Monday after a day of testimony revealed the priest to be a man consumed by guns, alcohol and gay pornography. [Pioneer Press]

Holy cow! How about this:

Erickson professed a love of God, but witnesses described a man who downloaded hardcore pornography — much of it involving boys. One file, which included 40 pornographic photos, was in a computer file labeled "Holy Mass/Prayers." [Pioneer Press]

Or this:

More recently, Erickson apparently "groomed" one teenage boy for sex during drinking binges and sleepovers at St. Patrick's rectory and was trying to do so with another, but that boy became uncomfortable. [Pioneer Press]

Or this:

From 2000 to 2002, the victim testified, he spent many of his weekends at the rectory with Erickson, watching horror movies and playing drinking games. He estimated that Erickson had supplied him more than 1,200 cans of beer and the same amount of liquor shots. The victim said he had seen at least two handguns owned by the priest.

Once the boy was drunk, he testified, Erickson would invite him to his bed, where he molested him on about 10 occasions. [Pioneer Press]

It takes your breath away.

In previous Red Star accounts prior to, and after, the "John Doe Trial", the Red Star mentioned the pornography angle, but suppressed the reference to homosexual pornography.

Why would the Red Star delete the homosexual reference? The reason goes to a very contentious place in the homosexual lifestyle debate. For years, "homosexual rights" groups have taken great pains to separate homosexuality from pedophilia. Then the public became ever more aware of the "lavender" priests infiltrating the seminaries. The priests molested young boys, and soon the sordid tales made the front pages. The possible connection in many cases between homosexuality and pedophilia became clearer, and the homosexual activists were not happy. This was a shock to their efforts to "normalize" the homosexual lifestyle.

And now court has released graphic details of the Hudson priest's lifestyle. He favored "gay" porn and was a child molester. The Red Star can't accept the facts, so they suppress the details.

If you're casual news reader you may not have known the truth until Rambix turned on the light in the dark hallways of the Red Star.