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April 20, 2005Vatican Coverage AtrociousBy Andrew DobbsI've had a passing interest in the selection of the new pontiff over the last couple of weeks as it is an incredibly important process that I've never had the chance to witness in my lifetime. Unfortunately for me the quality of news coverage of the event has been truly awful. The biggest problem seems to be that the media seem to regard the process as something akin to American politics, and their mindset is so skewed towards covering American political processes that they shortchange both the conclave and the expectations that people have. Want proof that they are completely clueless? How about this article from the Christian Science Monitor which has the title "Benedict XVI will test religion's 'red-blue' divide" and this quote:
I suppose that the idea is valid, but the rhetoric of a "red-blue" divide is so inane as to immediately cause severe nausea in conscientious readers. The fact that the colors chosen by network news broadcasts during the 2000 elections are now being applied to theological debates among the world's oldest Christian church is idiotic at best and downright blasphemous at worst. And the media's conception of this divide is also completely wrong. The fact of the matter is that if you let Michael Moore and Gloria Steinem pick the most liberal cardinal in the entire conclave, the person would still be against abortion, gay marriage, female ordination, allowing priests to marry and contraception. In any system, including ours, there are things which are so bedrock that nobody within respectable discourse questions their value. Nobody in American politics wants to get rid of the Senate or elect the President for life or legalize child pornography. Those things are so basic as to be unquestionable. In the same way, Catholic teachings on the sanctity of human life, the sexual purity and patricarchal nature of the clergy (and I don't use that term in a derogatory way, simply descriptive) and traditional family strucuture are so basic as to have very little opposition in the mainstream of the Church's hierarchy. To call Benedict XVI or any of the cardinals "conservative" because they support the traditional values of the Church is like calling Ted Kennedy a "conservative" because he doesn't want to legalize heroin. The American media are forcing American political debates and American political processes on a system that is almost 10 times as old as our Republic and operates on a completely different plane. To define Catholic "liberals" and "conservatives" by the issues of gay marriage, abortion and women's liberation is to ignore the truly salient discussions in the Church- local control versus centralization, liturgical reform, political economy, etc. We need some intelligent discussion on these topics, and God knows (I mean that in the most literal sense) that it won't come from CNN and the Christian Science Monitor. Posted by Andrew Dobbs at April 20, 2005 02:38 PM | TrackBack
Comments
Dobbs...I can rarely say this, but I appreciate your post and respect most everything, if not fully everything, you had to say. I agree with you 100% on this one. At least within the Catholic church, fundamental theology is not wavering - there is no relativisism. Church goers may vary on beliefs for various reasons, but dogma is dogma. No one should expect a cardinal, much less a pope, to vary in his views. Posted by: JW Walthall at April 20, 2005 03:23 PMAs a quick follow up... I of course am a democrat, a somewhat moderate one. I have differing opinions as to how I practice my Catholicism, but I accept that I am human and stray away from the church. I, however, do not expect the church (or its leaders)to alter its views unless there is a fundamental change in theological interpretation. Posted by: JW Walthall at April 20, 2005 03:28 PMSo the press is superficial and not always 100%accurate. So what else is new. Just look at the audience, for goodness sake, or do a vox populi interview down on Guadalupe (this a comment on organized religion, so I will try to avoid Nixon style expletives). What we do know is that Ratzinger's views, unlike those of certain would be popes or Supreme Court nominees, are well known, due to his prior position as the Chief Inquisitor of the Roman Catholic Chruch. By calling homosexuals "objectively disordered" and homosexual acts "evil" he has revealed himself to be a homophobe, no less than previous popes were anti-Semitic for calling Jews "unclean" and Christ Killers. You cannot excuse it by falling back on religious "dogma" "doctrine" or whatever other so-called justification. One piece of footage I am looking forward to seeing is one even my conservative Catholic mother got a hoot over. Seems a few years ago she saw a television report where a reporter asked Ratzinger a question the then Cardinal thought to be impertinent, so he sternly rapped the reporters knuckles with his own stiff hand. That brought back some memories of my own school days: Sister Martinella My friend: Repeats what he said Sister Martinella: Swings at my friend My friend: He ducks!
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