[Editor’s note: Where Peter Is is committed to providing faithful, challenging, and thought-provoking content while defending the integrity of Catholic teaching and tradition. The following account by Dawn Eden Goldstein illustrates a common experience for our writers, who are often criticized, misrepresented, or accused of heterodoxy for expressing views in line with Pope Francis’s vision of the Church. By publishing this piece, we seek to shed light on the dishonest tactics used to discredit the reputations of faithful Catholics who uphold the Magisterium and support the pope. — ML]

On August 30, 2024, I opened the inbox of my account on X (formerly Twitter) and found a direct message from the verified account of one Mark Irons: “Dawn, hello! I think we met once before, but I’m a reporter with EWTN News In-Depth in DC. I’m doing a few Catholic/politics/voting related stories and I wanted to learn more about your perspectives as I form these reports. Do you have a good email I could reach out to?”

Although I couldn’t recall meeting Irons, I sent him my email address. He replied that same day with a more specific request: “I am putting together a report focused on the results of an EWTN poll on faith, politics, and issues as the November election comes closer. … One of the questions will be about how Catholics plan to vote in 2024. I’ve seen your posts on X, and am interested in sharing why you’ve decided to vote for Harris in November.”

The reporter was referring to a series of posts I made explaining why, as a pro-life Catholic, after reading the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ voting document Faithful Citizenship, I had concluded that, given the threat Donald Trump posed to democracy, a vote for Kamala Harris was morally preferable to one for Trump.

As a former newspaper journalist, I respect reporters and want to support them when I can, so I agreed to the interview. But, given EWTN’s widely noted pro-Republican, pro-Trump bias, described by Where Peter Is editor Mike Lewis as “party over faith,” I doubted the news show would present my perspective without a rebuttal. More likely, I thought, it would only use me as a token pro-Harris talking head so it could then turn its focus to people speaking in favor of Trump, whom its CEO, Michael Warsaw, effectively endorsed in 2020.

What I was not expecting was to be defamed. But that is what happened. When Irons edited my interview, he added a voice-over introduction in which he said, “Some have criticized her for advocacy of gender ideology.”

I was appalled to hear the defamatory remark in Irons’s report on the September 6, 2024, episode of “EWTN News In Depth.” If EWTN were trying to come up with the most malicious and harmful lie about my beliefs, it could hardly do better than insinuate that gender ideology was behind my support of Harris. The network defines gender ideology as a philosophy that “seeks to blur differences between men and women through movements such as transgenderism.” I have never advocated such a thing. In fact (as I explain below), I have spent my entire career as a Catholic author and theologian promoting authentic Church teaching on human love and sexuality, and on the dignity of human life.

On September 7, 2024, I wrote to Irons demanding that the network issue a retraction and apology. When he did not respond, I wrote on September 9, 2024, to EWTN News Vice President and Editorial Director Matthew Bunson, making the same demand. He too did not reply.

At that point, I could have approached a civil lawyer to initiate a defamation lawsuit. However, my Catholic faith teaches me that, whenever possible, it is better to seek to settle this type of dispute through the means that the Church provides (per 1 Cor 6:1–5). So, on September 17, 2024, I sent a letter with supporting materials to Diocese of Birmingham in Alabama Bishop Steven J. Raica, the diocesan Ordinary of EWTN’s headquarters. In my letter, which appears below, I stated specifically that I was not asking him to discipline EWTN but rather to mediate between me and the network so as to avoid a civil dispute. (Canon 1446 of the Church’s Code of Canon Law provides for the possibility of such mediation.)

Bishop Raica responded in a letter dated October 2, 2024, although it was not postmarked until two weeks later. After acknowledging the main outline of my letter, he began by emphasizing that “EWTN and EWTN News is not an apostolate of the Diocese of Birmingham.” He then stated that, on September 26, he had informed EWTN CEO Michael Warsaw of the materials that I had provided, urging him to address my concern “utilizing the internal processes and procedures of the network in order to find an amicable and equitable resolution.”

The bishop then added, “Serving on the Board of Governors of EWTN, by virtue of my title as Bishop of Birmingham, I do not consider it prudent for me to proceed any further than I have already done.”

“Therefore, and in summary,” Bishop Raica concluded,

because EWTN is not an explicit apostolate of the Diocese of Birmingham; and because of my service on the Board of Directors [sic]; and

because I have personally informed the CEO of EWTN of your letter and documentation;

I have fulfilled your request within the canonical limits of my jurisdiction.

The bishop’s response left me disappointed and puzzled. I was disappointed, because, in disclaiming responsibility for EWTN, Bishop Raica chose to ignore that he does have a certain level of canonical authority over the network. As the territorial bishop of its headquarters, he had the authority to determine whether it had the right to call itself Catholic. If, for example, the network began to air pornography, doubtless Bishop Raica would immediately announce it was no longer a Catholic network. And I was puzzled by his claim that his seat on EWTN’s Board of Governors prevented him from asserting moral authority over it. What purpose did it serve for him to be on the board as EWTN’s diocesan bishop if not to ensure that the network conducted its business according to Catholic values?

With Raica declining to mediate, my only option other than launching a civil suit was to wait to see if Michael Warsaw would reach out to remedy the situation. Warsaw did eventually contact me, sending a letter by overnight mail on the afternoon of November 5, 2024—Election Day. However, his letter did not resolve the issue. Rather, it provided further evidence that EWTN, in defaming me, showed reckless disregard for the truth.

Warsaw wrote that he ran my claim of defamation past EWTN’s legal counsel. That is to say, he did not ask Mark Irons what was the basis of the defamatory statement. Instead, he asked counsel to research the statement to find out if any evidence could be found online to support it.

The CEO went on to say that his counsel had succeeded in finding “many examples” of my being criticized for advocacy of gender ideology. However, he cited only one such “example,” writing, “You’ve been referred to online as one of the ‘notorious, heterodox LGBT “Catholic” advocates.’”

I was stunned to read that Warsaw believed that such an outrageous claim constituted evidence that I had advocated gender ideology. But even more stunning was Warsaw’s choice of source: an article in LifeSiteNews, a known disinformation outlet that has been banned from YouTube and Facebook in the past. The article, which mentioned my appearing on a panel at Father James Martin, SJ’s 2023 Outreach conference for LGBTQ Catholics, pointedly omitted the topic of my panel: “Living a Life of Chastity.”

Since the CEO of EWTN chooses to accept a LifeSiteNews report as “evidence” that the network was within its rights to defame me, and since its bishop refuses to mediate on my behalf, my only option to defend my reputation, short of a civil lawsuit, is to take to the public square. Although I have not ruled out a suit, I am choosing at this time to engage in counterspeech—countering a lie by presenting the truth.

I am grateful to Where Peter Is for giving me this opportunity to share the following text of the letter that I sent to Bishop Raica, in which I demonstrate that the defamatory statement was false and damaging. The text has been edited to remove some personal information and to include direct links to the video of the EWTN program and to online articles mentioned.

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September 17, 2024

Dear Bishop Raica,

I am an author, theologian, canonist, and vowed celibate who, since entering into full communion with the Catholic Church in 2006, have devoted myself to serving Our Lord faithfully in obedience to the Church’s Magisterium. On September 6, 2024, the EWTN Television Network made a defamatory statement against me, in violation of the Code of Canon Law c. 220, and it has ignored my demands for a retraction and apology. I am therefore writing to request that you mediate in this dispute, or delegate a representative to do so, as recommended in c. 1446, so I may avoid using civil law to seek reparation to the damage EWTN’s defamation has done to my reputation.

The defamatory statement was made on the September 6 episode of EWTN News in Depth. As the reporter, Mark Irons, introduces a prerecorded interview with me, he says, “Some have criticized her for advocacy of gender ideology.” Here is the link to watch the video on EWTN’s YouTube channel; the defamatory statement appears at about 3 minutes, 45 seconds.

EWTN’s on-air accusation that I had committed “advocacy of gender ideology” distressed me. Even with the qualifier (“some have criticized her”), it is inaccurate. No one has ever levied any serious criticism against me for advocacy of gender ideology, because there is simply no evidence for such a claim. I have built my public reputation as a defender of Catholic teaching on marriage and sexuality, which I also defend in private.

Attached are emails that I sent to Mark Irons and to EWTN News Editorial Director Matthew Bunson demanding a retraction and apology. There has been no response to my emails, and no retraction or apology has been aired.

Your Excellency, since I realize you may not be familiar with my writings, permit me to present information supporting my contention that EWTN’s accusation is completely without foundation.

Since I published my first book, The Thrill of the Chaste, in 2006, I have been known as an advocate and defender of the entirety of Catholic teaching on human sexuality. I have also taught on human sexuality in Catholic seminaries, including the Pontifical John Paul II Institute in Kerala, India, where in 2019 I co-taught “The Indissolubility of Marriage” with Father Gregory Gresko, OSB, and Holy Apostles College and Seminary, where in 2017 I taught “Celibacy and Communion in St. John Paul II’s Catechesis on Human Love.”

Attached is a copy of a letter of good standing from my pastor, in which he affirms that, over the two decades that he has known me, he has never heard me contradict the deposit of faith in public or in private.

Several prelates of the Church are familiar with my work, including Cardinal Christophe Pierre, Cardinal Joseph Tobin, and Archbishop Joseph Naumann (who has interviewed me more than once for his podcast “The Shepherd’s Voice”), and all of them can attest to my orthodoxy. My previous Ordinary, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, gave his Imprimatur to my book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds to the Help of the Saints. I am not as well known to my present Ordinary, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, but he did thank me for sending him a copy of my most recent book, Father Ed: The Story of Bill W.’s Spiritual Sponsor (Orbis Books, 2022).

For further evidence of my orthodoxy, I have attached three representative examples of my writings on human sexuality:

• “Chaste Love Is for Everyone,” published on the Where Peter Is website (2021);
• “Pope OKs Blessing Persons in Gay Unions: What It Means, Why It Matters,” also from Where Peter Is (2023); and
• An exchange of editorials between myself and writer Christopher Hale published in the New York Times on the question of women deacons, in which I support Catholic teaching on the reservation of Holy Orders to men.

In addition to my faithful expositions of Catholic teaching on sexuality in the above articles and in my books The Thrill of the Chaste (particularly the 2015 Catholic edition, published by Ave Maria Press) and My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints (Ave Maria Press, 2012), I would like to draw your attention to two recent articles in which I support such teaching. They appeared this year in the National Catholic Reporter, whose reporter Katie Collins Scott sought me out to provide balance against voices holding opinions in line with that publication’s progressive stance.

The first of the Reporter articles, published in April 2024, quotes me expressing support for the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Dignitas infinita. I state that the Catholic Church’s teaching on the human race being created male and female is irreformable. In the other article, from May 2024, Scott describes me accurately as “a theologian and canon lawyer who embraces the church’s traditional doctrine on gender and sexuality.”

Because Scott’s interest in writing was not to go into detail concerning official Church teaching, she did not quote me at length in defense of such teaching. I mention her articles to show that, when I am consulted by a progressive publication, it is because the publication wishes to hear the thoughts of an orthodox Catholic thinker, not a dissenter.

Given that my reputation as an author, theologian, and seminary professor is grounded in my faithfully expounding Catholic teaching, particularly on human sexuality, it is reasonable to ask why EWTN would defame me by accusing me of “advocacy of gender theory.” I believe that the network sought to malign me as a dissenter because of the political opinion I expressed in the story. Reporter Mark Irons had sought me out for the EWTN News in Depth interview because I had written on the social-media platform X that, having weighed the candidates and issues in the presidential campaign, I was voting for Kamala Harris despite disagreeing with her profoundly on abortion (which is the gravest of many concerns I have about her positions).

When Irons asked me to speak on-camera about my choice to vote for Harris, I took pains to say I was voting for Harris with reluctance. I explained that I was voting not for the evil of unrestricted abortion, but rather for the good of democracy, in the hope that a Harris win would move the Republican Party to end its embrace of Donald Trump, his insurrectionism, and his harmful efforts to cling illegally to power.

In situations where all major candidates for an elected office support gravely evil policies, Catholic teaching, including the USCCB’s Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship (particularly §§36–37), affirms the faithful’s right to choose a candidate according to their own prudential discernment. Pope Francis himself said as much in his September 13, 2024, press conference during his return flight from Southeast Asia. I was therefore within my rights as a faithful Catholic theologian to express a private opinion regarding my vote in an election and the discernment that led me to it.

EWTN, however, seems to have been intent to telegraph to its viewers that no orthodox Catholic could vote for the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate. Hence, it chose to make a false and defamatory statement about me.

Your Excellency, I am not the first person whom EWTN has defamed for expressing opinions critical of Donald Trump or his policies, or for seeking to bring salt and light to a political environment that is harmed by the culture-war mentality Trump promotes. Many others have been similarly maligned by the network, including —

• Pope Francis, who accused EWTN of “doing the work of the devil” by “continually speaking ill of the pope”;
• Gloria Purvis, who was fired by EWTN after she expressed concern for Black lives in the wake of the George Floyd killing; and
• Father James Martin, S.J., who was subjected to a defamatory story from EWTN’s Catholic News Agency based on anonymous accusations claiming that Pope Francis “felt used” by him. Catholic News Agency failed to issue a retraction even when the accusations were refuted by two bishops present at the meeting, Archbishop John Wester and Bishop Steven Biegler.

The above examples demonstrate that EWTN’s defamation of me is part of a pattern. The network, with its affiliates, is abusing the power it possesses as a Catholic media outlet that enjoys support from Your Excellency and other U.S. Catholic bishops. It has repeatedly distorted the records and opinions of Catholics whom it wishes to discredit.

EWTN’s defamation harms me as a Catholic theologian, canonist, and author. If I were to seek recourse through civil law, I would have a per se defamation case, because the accusation it levied upon me is completely false, and it harms my present search for a full-time teaching position at a Catholic institution of higher education. However, in obedience to the preference of the Church for resolving disputes without recourse to civil law, I am instead asking you to use your authority under CIC c. 1446 to act as mediator, or delegate a representative to mediate, to obtain a favorable outcome.

A favorable outcome would be a public retraction from EWTN of its defamatory statement—correcting the record to show that I have not engaged in advocacy of gender ideology—and a public apology. Since the defamation was public, the retraction and apology should be public as well.

Your Excellency, I realize that you might ask why is it so important to me to receive a public retraction and apology for a defamatory statement that aired on a single episode of a news program. Beyond the damage caused by the defamation, I want to be sure that EWTN will never again abuse its power by harming me or others. I fear it will continue to commit such abuses if it is permitted to act with impunity.

Thank you for your consideration. I hope you will appreciate the distress that this defamation has caused me, especially as a theologian who hopes to return to teaching.

Yours in Christ,

Dawn Eden Goldstein, JCL, STD

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Image: EWTN Headquarters Irondale, AL. By Entoaggie09 at English Wikipedia, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19833463