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| Two things that the BBC excel in |
Now, wilful ignorance has given way to a prejudiced and spiteful anti Catholic campaign.
It spills over into all types of programmes; this morning's business news had a woman from industry (name unknown) who pronounced with great authority on the fact that the Catholic Church was so archaic, 115 men "average age 71 years" repeat etc., "all speaking latin to each other" (what did she expect - Serbo-Croat?) and all in a huddle to determine a new leader.
Annoying, ignorant and shallow, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.
Yesterday, on Radio 4's Today programme we had the ubiquitous Jimmy Naughtie interviewing none other than the highly respected and mainstream Church authority, Hans Kung.
Hans Kung! I ask you!
Of course, we were treated to a stream of damning statements regarding Pope Benedict XVI's reign.
And now, today, the same programme featured an interview with John Humphrys (always good for an inaccurate grasp of Church matters) and an ex priest (of course, they are de rigeur when a commentary on the Catholic Church is required) and Fiona O'Reilly batting for the good team on behalf of Catholic Voices.
First of all we were treated to a few sound bites from Tabletista and ex Amplefordian Ed Stourton (yawn, vomit).
Ed told us that the Pontiff (Pope Benedict XVI) had "fallen asleep" and the consquences were that the Church had failed in its dedication to social justice and in listening to the people.
I almost thought I heard cries of "Up the people" in the background but I may have been hallucinating at this stage.
Red Ed continued with his
I am sure that his scripts are written by the same frothy mouthed mob of socialist workers that put in an appearance at the Cardiff 40 Days Vigil recently.
Then on to (oh, joy) the man Humphrys described as a "Gay, 'married' priest" - is that an oxymoron? It's certainly a moronic comment.
For some unknown reason Humphrys adopted the American pronunciation of the GMP's name; Ber-naard Lynch he kept saying in pretty polly fashion.
Well Ber-naard certainly lived up to expectations. We were treated to barrow loads of sodomite cant such as "I was expelled from the Church because of my love for my 'husband'" (bucket please nurse).
Ber-naard (I can't stop saying it now) added that 95% of practising Catholics used contraception.
What that had to do with the debate was anyone's business but, where on earth did he get that statistic?
Not from the Farm Street Homo Information Bureau I trust.
Fiona O'Reilly did a valiant job but, coming in more or less at the end of the discussion, she was ever on the hind foot.
John Humphrys kept banging on about the Catholic Church ignoring the sexual priest issue blah, blah (and we cannot deny that this has been a problem, but one of that the Bishops have allowed to escalate) and I dearly wanted Fiona to bite back and ask what the Beeb did about Jimmy Savile for more than forty years, but, she was too Christian a girl for that.
That, in itself, typifies one of my concerns regarding Catholic Voices. The aims of the group are admirable but we don't just need "young and with it Catholic speakers", we also need to move away from a re-active stance to a pro-active one.
This (and I know you will hate me for saying it) is where having a good Catholic Media Director in place would pay dividends.
Someone who knows the press and the media inside out and who will take the battle to them; not sit back and wait until the problem has boiled over into a mega crisis.
Of course, if we had a corps of Bishops* who had moral fibre and some sort of spine, the problem would be solved.
Cardinal Heenan, where are you?
* I do not include the excellent Bishops of Portsmouth and Shrewsbury here.
The sad thing is that you're not exaggerating in the slightest...
ReplyDeleteBBC and its ilk is the enemy of truth. People of Faith and goodwill need to stop watching it.
ReplyDeleteYour friend E. Stourton managed this afternoon in Rome to get Sr. Jane Livesey, head of the Sisters of the Congregation of Jesus, to the mic.
ReplyDeleteYep, you guessed it. Not quite nuns on the bus, but close. Her predecessor appears to have favoured the habit. Sr. Jane, however . . . well, just google.
One assumes that the bishops are relaxed about all this, otherwise there would have been some sort of protest even behind the scenes.
In a way one can't entirely blame Humphrys for not understanding Catholicism when all he's fed is a stream of dross. I dare say the entirely ignorant Beeb is taking its advice on whom to interview from an expert - one E. Stourton
I certainly understand your frustration with the idiocies of the media...it's every bit as bad here in the USA. But these are the blatherings of revolutionaries at the end of their tether. The best response to them is laughter.
ReplyDeleteWatch them foam at the mouth when you smile at their stupid remarks. I've done it in face-to-face meetings with them. It's quite a lot of fun.
Ed sent his boys to Eton so they could learn how to relate to real people.
ReplyDeleteEveryone on our team need to from this point onward refer to BBC only as BIGOT BRODCASTING CORPORATION and sometimes BEEP for short. Remember language matters. Just ask the "GAY" Brigade. Richard and Genty, Thumbs UP.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that "bigoted" is the right word here. The animus displayed by so many of these commentators seems more like the hatred of morally diseased individuals raging against the light of Truth. And well they might for it is the pure in heart who are promised the beatific vision.
ReplyDeleteNo, wait, there's some gem in the BBC commentary: their Majesty, the Queen, has just joined the culture of sodomy by approving the aberrant lifestyle. Long live the Queen until she meets her Judge who will ask her some horrifying questions. What would indeed profit her as Queen for over 60 years but lose her soul for eternity?
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid the Queen already did damage to her soul when she signed in the Abortion Act in 1967...
DeleteA friend referred to a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation show (which I could not access) about "dragging the Church into the 21st century." My somewhat intemperate response:
ReplyDeleteDragging the Church into modernity? Along with modern sunrises, with-it flowers, contemporary falling-in-love, up-to-date ocean tides, reformed bare feet on summer days, cooler planetary orbits, trendy solar flares, and a more sensitive universe?
Or perhaps the successors to Saint Peter should build concentration camps as invented by the English in South Africa in 1901 and perfected by the North Koreans today? Should the remnant of the Papal States acquire nuclear weapons, spy satellites, and lethal drones? Perhaps the Swiss Guard should learn waterboarding, warrantless arrests, and beheadings-by-pocketknife from those modern states many people admire.
Some clerics have indeed "adopt(ed) the world's more spacious way" (Chaucer's corrupt monk who promoted modernization in the 14th century), and blessed (sarcasm alert) the world with paedophile priests, nuns who gamble their orders' funds away in casinos, gay (sic) masses, dancing-girls (okay, I didn't object, but they were certainly distracting), and fashionable priests driving Mercedes (I was thinking of the car, but perhaps also the church secretary). All that modernizing isn't working very well.
Or possibly the CBC believes the Nicene Creed should be a "living document" that means whatever anyone wants it to mean on any given day?
If the Church can be modernized in the ways I fear the CBC means, then it is, at best, irrelevant from its beginning, and we need not concern ourselves with it any more than we should occupy our time arguing collective nouns in conversational Klingon. As Flannery O'Connor said of the Eucharist, "if it's just a symbol, then to hell with it."
"'But that would be putting the clock back,' gasped the Governor. 'Have you no idea of progress, of development?'
"'I have seen them both in an egg,' said Caspian. 'We call it Going bad in Narnia."
- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C. S. Lewis
Hard on our Queen as she has no choice but to sign these things but I don't doubt she hates some of the legislation. Has anyone else out there ever wished for a non-constitutional Monarch?
ReplyDeleteOur Queen should ot be the target. She is the Head of the Anglicans and despite their failings, they are collectively the best allies we have with whom to fight against secularism.
The greatest enemies catholics have in the UK are our own bishops with the two notable exceptions of Shrewsbury and Portsmouth. How can we improve on the them? Some who are an absolute disgrace, such as one of the Welsh Bishops should be removed forthwith and perhaps found some menial task in Rome - perhaps to be in charge of Vatican sanitation, others could be retired early and others retrained. Most importantly is to prevent them continuing to clone.