Contact: Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, 212-371-3191, pr@catholicleague.org 

NEW YORK, Sept. 23, 2016 /Christian Newswire/ -- Bill Donohue comments on a bogus story about a Mexican priest that is being ignored by the mainstream media: 

The blogosphere lit up this week with headlines blaring that the Catholic Church in Mexico has exonerated an HIV-infected priest who admitted to raping 30 young girls between the ages of 5 and 10.

There was just one problem: According to the Archdiocese of Mexico, this priest doesn't even exist! "There is no record of such a minister," the Archdiocese attests. Even militant atheist blogger Hemant Mehta acknowledges that with no police reports, no victims going public, not even a photo of this priest, "there's no reason to think this is true."

So what we have here is a blatant attempt to smear the Catholic Church with the most vicious of lies. Why? The Archdiocese of Mexico suggests that supporters of same-sex marriage in Mexico are behind it, as they had recently threatened to plant damaging stories about the Church in retaliation for its opposition to a gay marriage initiative.

That seems like a pretty big story in itself. Yet the mainstream media have completely buried it.

Imagine if the opposite had happened—if the Catholic Church had published malicious lies about supporters of same-sex marriage. There would hardly be a newspaper, broadcast outlet or online media site in America that would not have led with the story. But when the Catholic Church is the target of such vicious lies, they summarily ignore it. Their silence tells us all we need to know about media bias against the Church.