Is Church Militant Lying About the SSPX or Are They Just Incompetent?

My money is on a bit of both, incompetence as journalists being covered with lies, slander, and detraction. You can read earlier articles in this series here, Church Militant vs. the SSPX.

From Les Femmes

By Susan Matthiesen

Before I begin, let me say a word to Milo. Milo, run! Run away from Church Militant as fast as you can. They're using you, your name and your fame for their own personal and professional gain. Stop being used!

Now that I've gotten that off my chest let's delve into Christine Niles and Church Militant knowing the truth while willfully lying (or are they just incompetent?) in order to defame the SSPX. 

Remember back in July when Christine Niles excoriated me for not "doing simple fact-checking" by not calling Rebecca Carroll personally and asking if she knew Jassy and Hannah before posting my article on the Internet? Christine was so incensed at my apparent ineptness that she threatened me with a lawsuit! 

Therefore shouldn't Christine Niles do the same thing herself? Shouldn't she be doing simple fact-checking - or at least have her staff do it for her - before taping shows and posting false base premises (my base premise was true) on Church Militant, Facebook and Twitter? Why lie when easily obtained facts are in plain sight? Is Church Militant lying for (Opus Dei) money to "fabricate a pretext" against the SSPX or is incompetence their modus operandi?

On October 9th Niles posted this on her Facebook page:

Christine Niles

October 9 @ 10:25 AM

I'm going to start a new dance called the SSPX Pretzel. https://www.churchmilitant.com/.../spotlight-sspx-cover...

In Church Militant's video, "Spotlight on the SSPX", Christine Niles states that Fr Jurgen Wegner, at the time District Superior for the SSPX in the United States, is "caught on audio" referencing "200 cases of abuse". That would be the number of priestly abuse cases that the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) is currently investigating going back several years (Missouri's cases went back to 1945). Out of the 205 cases, 120 are active. The number of "5-200 cases" which Fr Wegner mentions is the number of total cases from all four Kansas Catholic dioceses plus the small number of SSPX priests at St Mary's and Wichita. Yet Church Militant apparently edits the audio recording to make it seem as if Fr Wegner is saying that all 200 cases are from the SSPX alone. 

This isn't a "mistake". It can't possibly be, can it? Surely Church Militant doesn't make "mistakes" like that. That being an impossibility, it then seems that this was done deliberately by Church Militant in order to defame the SSPX, especially since the KBI report is on the Internet. By doing a simple search anyone can find it without the help of an entire studio filled with employees, so either Church Militant is incompetent or this is a bold-faced lie.

Since sensational tabloid journalism is Church Militant's forte their anti-SSPX video has stock photos of sad agonizing school girls fiddling with their hair while staring off into space, pictures of shooting guns, shredded secret documents, barbed wire, thumbprints, crime scene tape and the hilarious shot of a person (supposedly an SSPX priest) lurking in shadows behind closed window blinds with a gun in his hand, all of which are chosen specifically to heighten Church Militant's agenda against the SSPX.

Creepy psycho Halloween music is supposed to send chills of fear and terror up and down our spines since their music credits consist of Tension Builder, Dark Ambient, Countdown to Terror, Cinematic High Adrenaline Suspense, The Dark Skies of Armageddon, Horror Ambience 1, Intrigue and Mystery, and Shocking News among others. 

Next, as if Jassy wasn't totally tiresome enough the first time around, they repeat several minutes from her edited "tell all" video. We can see a letter stating that Jassy has spies in Sanford who are reporting "suspicious conduct" back to her in Kansas. (OMG!!! I saw him walking across the parking lot to a car!!!) Then as we listen to the erroneous and false base premise (200 cases of abuse among 50 SSPX priests) Christine mentally "does the math" for us!

Church Militant apparently obtained secret video or secret audio recording of Fr Wegner saying there are between "5-200" cases of sex abuse, however they neglect to show the entire secret footage from the secret video/audio recording, probably not because it's secret, but because Fr Wegner is referring to the entire KBI report and not just to the SSPX. He says he knows of 5-200 cases of sex abuse (that the KBI is involved in in Kansas) so Niles does the math, taking, not the lowest number of 5 or any number in between, but the largest number of 200, then infers that the entire 200 cases were from all 50 SSPX priests in the entire United States when obviously only a few of them were in Kansas. 

Meanwhile the report from the KBI clearly states that the 200 cases are from Kansas only, not the entire US (obviously), and in all 4 Kansas Dioceses of Wichita, Salina, Dodge City, Kansas City and the very small SSPX presence in St Mary's. Church Militant creates falsehoods (or are they just incompetent?) to make their audience think that all 200 cases are from the 50 US SSPX priests posted in the United States whereas the reality is that all 50 US SSPX priests obviously are not concentrated in the middle of the US in one place.

Nevertheless, Christine poses her false base premise then mentally does her math word problem. She says, "...serious questions must be answered. Was Fr Wegner referring to abuse cases only in the US? That's the natural implication considering he was in charge of the US at the time. If so that would mean 200 abuse cases among only approximately 50 priests - an extraordinarily high number. That would also mean the the total of abuse cases worldwide would be many hundreds more with 680 Society priests globally according to the latest figures. This leads to other questions the Society must answer. What is the actual total number of abuse cases in the SSPX over the course of its 50-year history?"

Do you see what she does there? She pretends not to know who or what Fr Wegner is referring to but that the natural implication would be that he was referring to his SSPX priests only. By pretending not to know, if anyone questions her integrity she can say, "Well, it's right there on the video where I questioned that fact." However, why didn't Niles call Fr Wegner and verify what he meant? After all, she threatened to sue me for not doing that very same thing. 

She then dodges a possible lawsuit by her Scarlett O'Hara imitation: "Oh fiddlee-dee-dee. My natural inclination was assumed by his natural implication." My guess is that Church Militant knows full well that Fr Wegner was referring to the 200 KBI cases of abuse by Kansas Diocesan Novus Ordo priests, some of which are probably Opus Dei, but that wouldn't fit Church Militant's narrative of 50 SSPX priests being responsible for all 200 cases.

Niles' simple math word problem multiplies ever increasing numbers thereby purposefully blowing the final number out of all realistic proportion in order to shock her trusting but foolish audience. Calculating the math by using Christine's false base premise the numbers are:

• 200 cases of sex abuse divided by 50 SSPX priests = 4 cases of sex abuse per SSPX priest 
• 4 cases of sex abuse per SSPX priest x 680 SSPX priests globally = 2,720 cases of sex abuse 
• 2,720 cases of sex abuse x 50 years of existence = 136,000 cases of sex abuse!! supposedly hidden by the SSPX for 50 years

As of October 9th Church Militant is still spreading this lie. My guess is that the truth is too revealing since there are probably only 1 or 2 actual open cases for the SSPX in Kansas. By using a false base premise Church Militant demonstrates their shameful agenda of doing the most harm possible to the SSPX. They know the truth, which is that the 200 cases are not from the SSPX alone but from all four dioceses in Kansas consisting of hundreds of diocesan priests, going back many years. They also know that the total number of SSPX priests should not include all United States SSPX priests, but only those few in Kansas at the time of the KBI Report.

Therefore Is Church Militant a group of unprofessional amateurs who can't manage to stumble over or grasp the facts right there on front of them, or are they wily charlatans out to destroy other people by twisting story lines to fit their preferred narrative? Why would anyone trust what they say?

Do they expose "falsehoods and lies" or do they make them up? Their love of sensationalism and insatiable desire to destroy the SSPX is truly and astonishingly something to behold.