Game Over: Benedict – 1. MSM – 0. (And how we can help the pope’s numbers)
It’s time to drive a stake through the heart of these libelous charges against the Holy Father.
The mainstream media has had their chance, made their great play, and came up short. Maureen Dowd did herself a disservice by joining the mob.
Sometimes she writes smart things (I think), this time she was a patsy for journalistic character-assassination. It’s one thing to be violently ideological, it’s another to propagate flimsy falsehoods to buttress that ideology.
I think the tide is turning against these critics of the Church (see my examples below), and we must help build momentum behind the pope’s innocence, while also making sure we understand why this attack on him was orchestrated in the first place. But now, some examples of the turning tide:
- NBC apologized today for an article on MSNBC’s website entitled, “Pope Describes Touching Boys: I Went Too Far.” (How does a headline so heinous even get by the editorial process?!)
- The New York Daily News has published an editorial: “Fairness for the Pope: Pontiff not at fault in Wisconsin pedophile priest case” (directly against Dowd’s op-ed for the New York Times)
- No less a figure than William Cardinal Levada, prefect of CDF, has published a lengthy piece against the New York Times, saying about their reporting, “Both the article and the editorial are deficient by any reasonable standards of fairness that Americans have every right and expectation to find in their major media reporting.”
- Bishop DiMarzio, in lock-step, has called upon priests and parishioners of his diocese to “besiege the New York Times” (Fr. Z asks “Are you going to saddle up? and directs us to the email address: executive-editor@nytimes.com – please join me in emailing this address).
And now the question we must ask ourselves:
What was the point of this attack?
To discredit the public moral witness of the Church, that “inconvenient voice” of truth in our time.
George Weigel calls out professional pope-hater Sinead O’Connor for her malicious editorial (published in the Washington Post), and writes about how these attacks aren’t about the person of the pope, they are about what he teaches – and what the Church therefore teaches:
What Sinead O’Connor is not free to do is to misrepresent the teaching and law of the Catholic Church in the Post in order to buttress her claim that the Church is an “abusive organization” and that the Church threatens with excommunication those who would blow the whistle on clerical sexual abusers. That is utterly false. If Ms. O’Connor is aware of that falsehood, she has lied. What is more likely is that she picked up this arrant nonsense from those who are attempting to portray the Catholic Church as a global criminal conspiracy of sexual predators, in order to cripple the Church morally and financially and to drive it from the public square in shame.
Elizabeth Lev – daughter of the heroic Mary Ann Glendon – echoes Weigel when she reveals the possible motivation and deeper causes behind these attacks:
… What would Edmund Burke make of the headlines of the past few weeks, as stories of a clerical sex abuser in Germany a quarter century ago, made front page headlines and top TV stories in US news? What would he think of the insistent attempts to tie this sex abuser to the Roman pontiff himself through the most tenuous of links? In 1790, Burke answered his own question with these words: “It is not with much credulity I listen to any when they speak evil of those whom they are going to plunder. I rather suspect that vices are feigned or exaggerated when profit is looked for in their punishment.” As he wrote these words, the French revolutionaries were readying for the mass confiscation of Church lands.
… If Burke were alive today, he would perhaps discern another motive behind the selective assaults on Catholic clergy, besides designs on Church property: namely to destroy the credibility of a powerful moral voice in public debate. The most recent example concerns the heated battle over the health care reform bill. The vocal opposition of the United States Bishops’ conference (particularly in regard to tax-payer-funded abortion) has proved especially annoying to the proponents of the legislation. As the final vote approaches, the clerical sex abuse drumbeat has risen to a frenzy.
Even if the current attacks on the pope were not originally brought about by liberal anger at the Church’s opposition to their favorite piece of domestic legislation, it is completely reasonable to assume that they understand the public witness of the Church is a continuing, bothersome thorn in their side.
As I said, let’s take the thorn out of their side and stick it into the heart of their evil project to silence the pope, and thereby silence the Church.
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137 Comments
Wow regarding the article link, they stole my friends line. It’s called The Four Horseman of the Talk Apocalypse– that’s Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O’Reilly. It works out so much better like that. I dont like how he phrased it. It just isnt as funny.
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BrianC,
I respect your thoughts on the Scott Brown thing. However, I think people need to remain consistent. You can’t tell others they can’t vote a certain way because it’s not pro life, and then put up a photo of a Pro Choice person that just won, and then claim it’s ok, because of the healthcare bill. In some ways it makes me wonder if people in many ways, didnt use the healthcare bill as a scapegoat for their political partisanship. Now granted a good many likely may not have, but a good many I feel probably did. I guess we will never know for sure. However, I did find it very hypocritical. I don’t think the man should have been celebrated. That’s what really bugged me. It’s like it’s ok to celebrate him, because he’s a Republican, and when they do it, it’s ok. It would have made more sense to me, to just leave that one alone. It didnt need the publicity in the pro life realm of things. But it didint work out that way, and I really can’t say I like that. Then after all that, Scott Brown didnt help in the end anyways. So it really was a worthless move.
Mike Johnson
That’s the problem with expectations. They can lead to disappointment. Better not to have them at all, in my opinion.
Marv,
You thought it was more significant to refute my opinion about green tea than to defend with a shred of evidence your insipid claim that Jesus would support the right to abort children? I’ve come to expect a lot more from you, you know.
Cindy, yes.
@TJM,
You are consistant, and you do make me laugh. It’s like you are so you through and through and it makes me laugh. We will never meet anywhere in the middle right? I didnt think so.
@Mike Johnson, are you MikeinCT?
Van Smack,
I was loving your post until the end. baa haa haa ha! I thought it was the smartest things you’ve said all day, until the end. Love you too buddy! 
Cindy: “…Or the idea of Scott Brown being a good choice. I have my thoughts on that one.”
I had no problem with Thomas supporting Brown due to the unique circumstance of the effect of the election on the filibuster and potential at the time to affect the healthcare vote in a pro-life way.
“Or the Sisters who went Green. Like it’s a crime for them to be green. I just think that may be a little too partisan.”
I think Thomas mentioned that at the time he posted that he was not aware that they were officially separate from the Catholic Church; I think his maint objection was the sister presiding over (what he thought was being presented as) Mass. I agree with you that the hostility of many Orthodox Catholics to being green is confusing (the Pope has recently propoted green technology I believe).
“Or defending the Pope against Hot Air. Children that have been molested and getting reported about is anything but ‘hot air’.
I believe the ‘hot air’ referred to the charges of the Pope’s involvement related to the case in Milwaukee, which turned out to be untrue. The abuses themselves are of course serious.
“Then you have the ‘priest that gets an award’. If you get an award and someone’s politics are different than your’s are, you are going in the trenches. That person better take cover.”
I must admit I don’t know enough about this recent story to comment.
“Now granted I’m not saying that there are not some solutions that could be had. I just feel that you are losing people in the mix, because they are not going to stick around for the good times. I like Thomas, but he can do better. We all can though and life is a learning process.”
My biggest concerns about Thomas were related to whether he was letting political conservatism overlap too much into this blog. I now feel for the most part that his posts here are from a Catholic Orthodox perspective and not a political perspective.
Smack: “You assumed I was a Republican and Bush supporter. Nope.”
So you criticize those who vote Democrat but you claim to not be a Republican supporter. While holding both of these positions is logically consistent (I have nothing against those who vote third party), I do think it is logically inconsistent to hold both of these positions AND criticize Cindy basically for picking a side. Your hostility toward her in this thread shows that you effectively are a Republican supporter, by default.
Mike Johnson
I didn’t miss your point. I simply didn’t feel it was significant enough to respond to. I have free choice, as do women, in my opinion.
I agree TJM that the Democratic Party is un-votable until they get rid of abortion on demand. Unfortunately, I can see the Republican Party adding abortion on demand to its platform long before the Democrats remove it from theirs. At this stage in history, there are very very few politicians worthy of votes, and neither major party represents the Church’s views completely. Its pathetic.
Yes, the Democratic Party is indeed the Party of Death. But unfortunately, the Republicans are not a dimes-worth better on many of the same issues, and don’t think they would not sell babies down the river if it were politically advantageous.
In short, Washington DC is an unrecoverable mess. And while the Democrats shoulder the majority of the blame, the Republicans didn’t exactly stop them and in many ways set them up.
“Catholic” Democrats? They don’t exist. Some Catholic Republicans do exist, but they best be Catholic before Republican, or they’ll be in the same boat as Cindy and other Democrat Shills sooner or later.
This is addressed to the “Catholics” who are Democrats.
First of all, read Catholics in Public Life, an authoritative Church document which would lead a sentient human being into rethinking their membership in the Democratic Party.
Second, why not write to Archbishop Burke, head of the Signatura, and tell him he’s all wet when he asserts the Democratic Party is the “Party of Death.” Of course you won’t because you know the answer you’ll get and you don’t want to hear it. When a political party has a plank in its party platform which venerates abortion on demand (An intrinsic evil in the Catholic Church) it is much like the Nazi party. If the Democratic Party withdraws that from its platform, then I will modify my views. I’m not holding my breath.
BrianC,
I do want to agree with you and I like Thomas for many reasons.
However, here are some of the things I do notice.
He doesnt like cartoons about the Pope, yet he puts up lots of photos that get some pretty nasty comments from people and the crowd loves it, but I’m not so sure it’s the Christian thing to do…. See the snake and mongoose or the one’s of Pelosi. You might see it, but maybe not. Or the idea of Scott Brown being a good choice. I have my thoughts on that one. Or the Sisters who went Green. Like it’s a crime for them to be green. I just think that may be a little too partisan. Or defending the Pope against Hot Air. Children that have been molested and getting reported about is anything but ‘hot air’. Then you have the ‘priest that gets an award’. If you get an award and someone’s politics are different than your’s are, you are going in the trenches. That person better take cover.
Now granted I’m not saying that there are not some solutions that could be had. I just feel that you are losing people in the mix, because they are not going to stick around for the good times. I like Thomas, but he can do better. We all can though and life is a learning process.
Marv,
Boy, you’re good at intentionally missing the point, aren’t you?
Ah but Cindy, you made a fatal mistake there. You assumed I was a Republican and Bush supporter.
Nope.
Now, wasn’t that easy? How about answering my question then. Politics or Christ? I choose Christ. How ’bout you?
Mike Johnson
I disagree with you completely. Green tea should only be consumed on Tuesday’s and never forced. Sugar optional.
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