Making Excuses For Dolan

The National Catholic Register twists itself into knots in a bizarre defense of the Dolan pedophile payoff scandal.

Consider this: Suppose you are walking down the street and a homeless person approaches you and asks you for some money. You give him the money. Would that justify a headline saying that you have been paying the homeless? Or suppose you were with your teenage son or daughter and they asked if they could give some money to the homeless person as an act of kindness and you said Yes. Would that justify a headling saying that you authorized paying the homeless? Or maybe you send your grandchild $20 for his birthday, because he's at that age where he's hard to buy for and what he really wants is money. Have you paid your grandson? Not all disbursements of money constitute "paying." Gifts, grants, charitable donations, and other forms of transferring money from one person to another do not automatically count as "paying."

Were the situation not so grotesque, the above would be laughable.