Why Do the Media Hate the Church?

It’s sad to watch the New York Times, Washington Post, MSNBC, and others attack Pope Benedict XVI. The story they have spun over the last week about his supposed mishandling of the case of abusive Milwaukee priest Rev. Joseph Murphy is risibly tenuous.

These once-great newspapers trivialize themselves by publishing front-page stories making obvious their chronic aversion to the Catholic Church and, especially, the pope. Nothing else but a kind of seething hatred explains their willingness to ignore the canons of credible reporting and commentary.

Bill Donohue, one of the staunchest defenders of the Church in this country, fought back against this latest attack from the very first blow. The president of the Catholic League calls the New York Times story on Father Murphy the “last straw,” but no doubt there will be more to ignite Donohue’s flaming pen.

I asked him and a number of other experts a question: “Why do media like the New York Times and the Washington Post hate the Catholic Church and the pope? What’s the source of the animus?”

Donohue replied, “As I said in today’s New York Times op-ed page ad, it stems from three issues: abortion, gay marriage, and women’s ordination. So, when they can nail the Church on promiscuity, they love it. The goal is to weaken the moral authority of the Church so it won’t be as persuasive on issues like health care.”

Fred Barnes, executive editor of the Weekly Standard, agrees that the media want to weaken the Church. He echoes what his friend the late Bob Novak used to tell me about the mainstream media: It is “the most secular, liberal group in the country. The Catholic Church stands for everything you and I believe (though I’m not a Catholic) and for practically nothing the media likes. But the media cannot ignore the Catholic Church because it is so strong, popular, and enduring. That leaves the media one avenue of attack: Jump on any mistakes or scandals involving the Church and don’t let go.”

Another Evangelical friend of Catholics, Ralph Reed, founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, wrote to me that the “lamestream media hates the pope because he exemplifies the vibrancy and relevance of orthodox faith in today’s society, which many in the press find either alien or deeply troubling.” Reed also believes that for the “once-divided Evangelicals and devout Roman Catholics, the pope is a symbol of a faith-based constituency the media views as hostile to modernity and values-neutral ‘tolerance.'”

Some responses to my question were brief and to the point. Bishop Robert F. Vasa of Baker, Oregon, wrote, ” Jesus told us it would happen: John 15:18-19.” Looking the passage up, I found:

If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

Another quotation from Scripture came from the founder of Wallbuilders, David Barton, who cited Romans 1:28-30 to describe what happens to those who directly reject belief in God. ^“They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil.”

The philosopher Francis Beckwith, a recent convert to the Catholic faith, located the source of the media’s hatred in “the narrative of secular liberalism.” “The media doesn’t want to acknowledge that Catholics even have an ‘intelligent’ point of view,” he explained. “This is why they don’t assess arguments, they seek out scandal in order to demoralize opposition. Given its status as an unquestioned first principle, secular liberalism cannot allow a divine foot in the door.”

Russell Shaw, who used to deal with the press on a daily basis as communication’s director for the U.S. bishops’ conference, agrees: “The people in charge in those places are secularist ideologues who believe they possess the right answers.” Shaw is not particularly sanguine about the outcome of the struggle: “It would be nice to think there’s a happy ending to this story, but I doubt it. Somebody’s got to win in the end.”

The recurring theme in the answers I received was that of two powers, two opposing moral viewpoints, competing for influence. The secular power of the media detests the traditional moral teachings of the Church but does not confront it directly, preferring coverage of scandal to argument. As Jim Bopp Jr., general counsel to National Right to Life, wrote to me, “The pope and the Church are the strongest force making people accountable to traditional moral requirements. It therefore must be destroyed by any means necessary.”

The poet Matthew Arnold wrote in “Dover Beach” about loss of faith that left us on a “darkling plain/Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight.” In this round of attacks on Benedict, we are witness to just such a scene. But, as Beckwith reminded me, the pope knows how to defend his faith. “This scares the crap out of the mainstream media, since it upsets the narrative [that] ‘only dumb, ill-informed people disagree with us.’ The narrative must be sustained at all costs, even if it means engaging in wicked defamation.”

Source: InsideCatholic

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Noonan Doesn’t Get It

 

In her most recent column, Peggy Noonan argues that the MSM tried very hard NOT to report on the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. They were dragged kicking and screaming to the table, and they still get cold chills every time they run a story. 

Peggy Noonan is simply wrong. 

According to the Dept. of Education’s own studies, the public schools produce victims at a rate 400 times higher in the course of ten years than the Catholic Church produced in 50 years. 

If the news reporting were equitable across all lines, we would see 400 stories on public school sexual abuse for every one story we see on priest sexual abuse. 

Similarly, the rates of sexual abuse among Protestant and Jewish denominations are also higher than that in the Catholic Church. 

If the reporting were equal across all incidences, we would see two or three stories about other faith denominations’ abuse for each Catholic priest story. 

Finally, we must remember that child-marriage is not only NOT a sin in Islam, heterosexual pedophilia is considered a virtue, since the 50 year old man who consummates marriage with a nine-year old girl is simply emulating Mohammed. 

Mohammed lived a sinless life, according to Muslim belief, so anyone who imitates him is living a virtuous life. Mohammed married Aisha when she was six and consummated the marriage when she was nine. He was 54. There is essentially NO reporting on this fact anywhere. 

No one is calling for Islam to cleanse itself of the rot.

Peggy, how about a column about that?

But why not?

Aren’t you and other news types willing to risk having your throat cut for criticizing Mohammed? 

So, let’s sum up a little more accurately than Peggy was able to do. 

The MSM reporters went after the Catholic Church almost exclusively and certainly out of all proportion to the actual amount of abuse that occurred within the Church. 

It ignored (in order of abusive importance) Jews, Protestants, secular public schools and Islam. 

Noonan’s attempt at MSM apologetics is simply pathetic. 

Yes, the abuse happened, but no, the reporters didn’t try to avoid attacking the Church.

They reveled in it, the focused on it, they intend to take the Church down.

The crescendo is designed to reach its peak during Holy Week.

End of story.

Peggy Noonan is either an idiot or a liar.

I’ve lost all respect for her.

Source: Fifth Column