I’ve developed a fairly thick skin when it comes to criticism directed toward me and the newspaper. It pretty much goes with the territory. I know that on any given day something we do or print will likely infuriate one group or another.

Still, I have to admit I was taken aback at the voice-mail that greeted me this morning.

It was a familiar voice. But this time he was making a claim I had not heard before. In fact, he was making just the opposite.

There is a not small contingent out there who believe the newspaper is virulently anti-Catholic, that we never miss an opportunity to attack the church. In effect, they accuse us of Catholic-bashing.

Chief among them is a fiercely loyal group of Cardinal O’Hara alumni who do not like the way we covered the Tim Donaghy case. He is the O’Hara grad and NBA ref who was at the center of a gambling scandal that rocked the league.

But the message I got this morning was not that we are anti-Catholic. In fact, this caller wanted to express just the opposite.

We blatantly pro-Catholic, and censor any message that does not agree with that view. The caller said that no Sound Offs or letters to the editor critical of Cardinal Justin Rigali or the church ever appear in print.

He went a little further, suggesting that not only are we blatantly telling only one side of issues involving the archdiocese, we also are blindly pro-Irish.

Now I suppose it is not an accident that I am both very Irish and very Catholic.
I guess the caller had not yet seen my print column this morning, lamenting the continuing decline of archdiocesan schools in the eastern end of the county.

Yep, sure sounds like the work of someone who will never print anything critical of the Catholic church to me.