GetReligion
The year’s at the spring, And day’s at the morn; Morning’s at seven; The hill-side’s dew-pearled; The lark’s on the wing; The snail’s on the thorn; God’s in His heaven—All’s right with the world!
Robert Browning, Pippa Passes (1841)
It’s a wonderful life. My heart has been singing songs of joy every morning as I take up my newspapers and survey the latest news on the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI. For a critic of religion reporting these are the good times — no slogging through continental newspapers to find a story to review for this blog. I am spoiled for choice just by reading the British press. Some of the stories have been so silly and wrong-headed as to be bizarre.
But there have been quite a few good stories from the religion reporters at the Times, Telegraph, Guardian, BBC and Independent in addition to the speciality church press (Catholic and Anglican) on this issue — but outside the specialist reporters the quality falls off sharply in the secular press. There is also an undercurrent of hostility towards the Catholic Church that few media outlets bother to hide — or appear to recognize.
A typical example came in BBC Radio 4?s Any Questions program. Members of the audience are asked to submit written questions on topical issues for discussion by a panel of speakers that ostensibly will provide a balance of views. The producers of the show pick the panel and the questions — and on Friday’s broadcast 23:45 minutes into the show (after questions on the food standards in the wake of the horse meat in hamburgers scandal) the question was put to the panel: “Is now the time for a black, woman pope?”
The first speaker, Ruth Davis, chief policy adviser for Greenpeace sidestepped the question, but said she did believe it was the duty of the next pope to “reconcile” the church with “the values most people hold” in Britain. Liberal Democrat MP Nick Harvey MP said to a roar of applause from the audience the Catholic Church “should be dragged into the 21st century,” and that it should update its teachings to “connect” with the values of the modern world. He and Labour MP Margaret Hodge urged the church to permit women clergy and and bring its moral ethic in conformance with those of the British establishment.
Mrs. Hodge — who was head of the Islington Council when that London Borough was responsible for the oversight of local care homes where investigators uncovered evidence of sexual abuse (Hodge refused to investigate the charges at the time as it would have cost too much) raised the issue of child sexual abuse. She argued the Catholic Church had been lax in addressing the sexual abuse scandal and observed that child sexual abuse and pedophilia were “rampant in the Catholic Church”. Only Environment Minister John Hayes declined to attack the church noting that he was not black, not a woman and not Catholic so he felt disqualified in offering an opinion on the propriety of a black woman pope.
Let me say that Any Questions is a serious, highly respected news program. The discussions of the other topics were measured — and somewhat dry. It was when the topic turned to the Catholic Church common sense flew out the door.
However, it was the Guardian that took the prize for week one in the All-England pope-bashing contest. The news article entitled “A black pope could result in mixed message over priestly celibacy” informs British readers that Africans are cretinous sex-maniacs whose Catholicism is skin deep and that the priesthood is a haven for gay men seeking meaning for their pitiful lives. This strange piece begins with an unfavorable comparison between Benedict and John Paul to John XXIII.
When Pope Benedict addressed the clergy of Rome on Thursday, he chose to talk to them about the Second Vatican Council, perhaps the central event of his life. He is among the last people alive to have taken part in that momentous gathering and it is a privilege of the long-lived to rewrite history. The then Joseph Ratzinger played a leading role in the revolutionary changes brought about by what Catholics call Vatican Two, but then did a theological U-turn after witnessing with horror the more secular upheaval of 1968. He and his predecessor, John Paul II, have step-by-step reoriented the Catholic church to the point that it is nowadays an institution which might dismay the pope who convoked the Council, John XXIII, and reassure his austere predecessor Pius XII.
Get that — Benedict has sought to reverse the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. And the evidence for this assertion? Well there is none, but we do get another outlandish assertion.
The change of direction has created a smaller, but more homogenous, church. Millions of the laity in Europe may have drifted away in despair at the gap between their lives and the Catholicism preached by the Vatican; priestly vocations in Europe may have fallen off a cliff, but those who remain – worshipers and clerics alike – are proud to belong to a conservative institution at odds with the times.
The article states the decline in church attendance and the fall of priestly vocations in Europe is not a phenomena of liberalism and secularism but the ultramontane (reactionary) policies of the last two popes. Evidence for this extraordinary assertion? Again, there is none. But at this stage we do move into the meat of the story.
So the election to the papacy of a conservative African or Asian prelate would, in principle, be welcome to large sections of the church in Europe and the United States. Even for the dwindling minority of liberals, it would be a reminder to the world that, overall, Catholicism is growing, and at a faster rate than the global population. But traditionally-minded Catholics might see one major change resulting from an African pope; the tradition of priestly celibacy.
Because of that tradition, combined with the contemporary intolerance of the laity towards unmarried relationships between priests and their “housekeepers”, it would appear that the number of gay men in the Catholic priesthood has increased.
How’s that for a plot twist — bet you didn’t see that one coming. Because the church no longer lets priests fool around with their housekeepers the clergy are now gayer. In support of this assertion we have a comment by the chief executive of the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (a minister of the Metropolitan Community Church) that the Catholic priesthood is a haven for those who cannot answer the question “Why aren’t you married yet?”
It is unlikely an African or Asian cardinal would be elected pope because they would crack down on the gay subculture of the European Catholic Church, the article states, and because they would be more likely to end priestly celibacy. The article observes:
… time and again, bishops on visits to Rome have stressed that, in many African cultures, a man without a woman beyond a certain age incites suspicion and lacks authority. That puts a Catholic priest at a notable disadvantage to the local imam in many of the areas where Christianity is competing with Islam for ascendancy. And since that is one of the most important challenges facing the church, a black pope could put an end to priestly celibacy.
Remember this article did not appear in the Comment is Free section of the Guardian or as an editorial or op-ed piece. It was printed in the news section — and did not even have the cover of being called “news analysis”. Where does one begin? There are several statements offered as fact that need substantiation — the cause of the decline of the Catholic Church in Europe, the priesthood as a refuge for gay men, the disinclination of Africans to honor clerical celibacy, and cultural pressures from Africa that identify unmarried men as being “suspicious” characters. These are opinions, not facts and this is certainly not news. The lack of professionalism in this story is compounded by an extraordinary cluelessness — the Guardian‘s Rome correspondent does not seem to get out very much.
My favorite Guardian article of the week though was published on 15 Feb in the World News section. It stated the pope had resigned because he had lost his faith.
When the resignation of the Pope was announced earlier in the week, the news seemed bizarre, almost unbelievable. I find, as I get my head around the idea, that the whole thing just becomes more bizarre, not less. If you strongly believe in God, I suppose you can tell yourself that He moves in mysterious ways, as per. But if you don’t, then this all seems rather like the moment when the curtain moves back to reveal the Wizard of Oz as a wee man pulling levers. Exposing the Papacy as a job, not a sacrosanct heavenly ambassadorship, is a quite risky thing to do, precisely because it’s so human, so humdrum, so non-spiritual. The only logical conclusion is that Joseph Ratzinger no longer believes that he is God’s representative on earth. Awkward. The Pope has surely lost his faith.
While I was surprised by the news of the pope’s resignation, I did not find it bizarre. The suggestion that he was stepping down because he no longer believed — that is bizarre.
I must say these stories made me laugh. While the first few roused my professional ire, the great number of silly stories (these three are but a skim of the surface) soon brightened my day. There is a Monty Pythonesque sense of the absurd in these stories. They are so terrible that they cease to upset me and leave me smiling. What say you GetReligion readers? Am I so jaded that I am unable to be offended anymore?
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In
I’m a tiny bit confused – are they saying there are too many gay clergy? (I thought the problem was there weren’t enough, what with “the Vatican” “cracking down” on seminarians who are same-sex attracted).
If I am disentangling the story correctly, there won’t be an African/South American pope because someone from those regions would do away with the discipline of priestly celibacy and permit married clergy. And if we had married clergy, we would have fewer to no gay clergy.
Mm-hmmm. May I ask my brethren and sistren in The Episcopal Church have they found that to be the case, or is it that the next demand after “let the clergy marry!” and “let the clergy be female!” would be “let the clergy be GLBT!”?
For people in the know, these stories are laughable. But for many of The Guardian’s readers, they will take it as gospel, which is no laughing matter because it only furthers their ignorance.
Orr’s commentary on the resignation being “bizarre” actually reveals what the secular world understands about the papacy, that we as Catholics somehow believe that the pope is — as The Christian Science Monitor stated — “the direct spiritual descendant of Jesus Christ and his disciple Peter” (http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Global-News/2013/0211/Pope-Benedict-s-legacy-More-influential-than-Pope-John-Paul-II). They seem to believe that we believe there’s an ontological/sacramental change that takes place when a man becomes the Bishop of Rome, which is not what we believe. We do believe that the Holy Spirit is at work during a conclave, but we also understand, as one Joseph Ratzinger once said, that there is a freedom given to the cardinals to choose whom they will. As the then-cardinal put it, “There are too many contrary instances of popes the Holy Spirit obviously would not have picked!” (http://ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic/quick-course-conclave-101)
Right, and what’s more, Benedict said in a published interview in 2010 (Light of the World w/Peter Seewald) that a pope should resign if he can no longer perform his duties. So had he “lost the faith” by then?
So what you’re saying is that American papal coverage is, by comparison, sober and informative. Fascinating!
Compared to the Guardian and the BBC, the New York Times, Washington Post — even MSNBC (well perhaps not) is sober, reasoned and balanced.
GC
I suppose it does matter because The Guardian is read by many in the chattering classes. But like nearly all UK newspapers its circulation has been dropping like a stone, indeed faster than most. In January on a six-month rolling average it had dropped a staggering 12% and was selling only 204,000 copies. People my age (in their sixties) can remember the move from Manchester to London when it began, it seemed, to challenge The Times as a newspaper of quality and was in the region of 500,000. Those days are long gone – a tradition of seriousness inherited from Manchester and Nonconformist religion has been replaced by surfing the thought trend of the passing moment. You can find the circulation figures here – ironically, from The Guardian, which is read by many journalists and so takes the circulation reports seriously:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/table/2013/feb/08/abcs-national-newspapers
Time to consult Jim Hacker again: “The Guardian is read by the people who think THEY ought to run the country.”
Or a LGBTYXZABCTYC person perhaps.
“Is it time for a black Welsh disabled woman trades unionist pope?”
VAtican 2 is a Swiss Army knife for almost anything anyone wants to say about Catholicism. The word means almost nothing and the moresoe if a journalist uses it. It’d be a good youtube video to ambush Catholics with a question like “What’s you’re favorite quote from a V2 document?”. Don’t bother with anyone else, the word “document”is rough enough.
“what Catholics call Vatican Two” — what an odd formulation. Maybe part of the secular world’s problem is that they parse “Vatican II” not as “the second Vatican Council” but as “Vatican 2.0″/”Catholicism 2.0”. I mean, we knew that’s what they think it is, but perhaps there is an ambiguity of nomenclature too…
Anyway, yes, welcome Americans, to the funhouse mirror of Guardianworld.
And yet the same Guardian did a positive story in Pius XII:
http://m.guardiannews.com/world/2013/feb/09/hitlers-pope-pius-xii-holocaust
That was only after constantly supporting the false “Hitler’s pope” idea. Apparently they felt a pang of conscience or at least wanted to be perceived as somewhat neutral. The “evidence” that was supposedly just now “uncovered” has been lying out in the open since the end of the war. Why else would Israel’s prime minister, the chief rabbi, and many others have publicly praised Pius?
I thought the narrative was that those abusive priests were not REAL homosexuals, since otherwise that would impugn the good and perfection of homosexuality.
The stories remind me of the virulent anti-Catholicism of the Earl of Grantham and his pompous Anglican vicar on Downtown Abbey. It apparently pervades not only the Anglican establishment but the British social and intellectual establishments.
“they parse “Vatican II” not as “the second Vatican Council” but as “Vatican 2.0?/”Catholicism 2.0?
What an interesting observation. That explains a lot.
George, is it wrong of me if these stories don’t leave me amused, but instead feeling…incredibly angry and insulted?
I think the BBC example sets me off fastest. And I’ll put it really, really, really bluntly: Who the hell are these people (who likely are not even nominally Catholic) to think they have any right to comment like that? If the tables were turned, there’d be an uproar in a nanosecond.
Yes, I’m being very tribal here. It’s one thing when you get stick from wayward members of the flock. It’s another when random morons are being a peanut gallery and holding your faith up for mockery.
I do find the Guardian article to be quite offensive, and I don’t get offended too easily at this sort of thing. But this article is so off the wall and ridiculous (particularly the completely unsubstantiated part about African bishops and their apparent disagreement with clerical celibacy) that it is hard to say a lot about the specifics. It is just awful.
The picture, though, made a lot of it better. For anyone who doesn’t know, it is from the Monty Python “127th Annual Upperclass Twit of the Year Competition” sketch. Seeing that picture precipitated me watching the video at least three times in a two hour stretch. Many thanks.
Thanks Jon for mentioning the photo — It’s always gratifying when someone gets an insiders joke.
GC
“It’s one thing when you get stick from wayward members of the flock. It’s another when random morons are being a peanut gallery and holding your faith up for mockery.”
Welcome to Mormonism 24/7 and religion in general of the 21st Century.
Point taken re Mormonism, Jettboy. Re religion in general, not sure I agree.
Sad but I really wouldn’t expect anything less from The Guardian. Seems as if they want to make the Catholic Church into the roaring success that their Anglican Church now is which has all the things they are lamenting. And surprisingly, many are leaving for the outmoded and outdated Catholic Church! I generally like The Guardian but expect nothing less from a secularized left wing paper. No surprises here.
Gotta laugh to keep from crying, and I’m not a Catholic! There really is something surreal about seeing so much reporting from the general point of view on the Catholic Church that these articles have. There is an “undercurrent of hostility towards the Catholic Church that few media outlets bother to hide — or appear to recognize.”, but there also seems to be a lot of wishfull thinking/people seeing what they want to see (i.e. thinking the church would realistically suddenly become an organization that holds “modern” ethical standards, seeing the past two Popes as being very reactionary mainly for not being as progressive as the writer would like, describing a Pope stepping down as “Exposing the Papacy as a job, not a sacrosanct heavenly ambassadorship”)
I comment on CiF in the Grauniad daily. It keeps me sharp – I teach Religion in High School. I also comment because the overwhelming number of comments are sneeringly banal anti-Catholic insults. I want Catholics to be able to scan the comments and at least find one or two posts that are not afraid of being singled out for being “too Catholic.” And I enjoy riling up the luvvies of the left. Maybe I should go to confession?