Two years ago, the mainstream media gathered in a special conclave in Rome to discuss the disastrous election to the papacy of Ratzinger the Enforcer, God\u2019s Rottweiler, the hardliner, inflexible, rigid, etc., blah blah. Some of us suggested to our television screens that the talking heads might want to wait more than a few seconds before doing the autopsy on the pontificate of Pope Benedict XVI. [\u2026]<\/p>\n
\u2026when you Google the following clich\u00e9s, you get these kinds of numbers:<\/p>\n
\u201cBenedict XVI\u201d rigid \u2014 52,800
\n\u201cBenedict XVI\u201d hardliner \u2014 27,100
\n\u201cBenedict XVI\u201d inflexible \u2014 10,300
\n\u201cBenedict XVI\u201d dominating \u2014 290,000
\n\u201cBenedict XVI\u201d ruthless \u2014 126,000
\n\u201cBenedict XVI\u201d enforcer \u2014 28,800
\n\u201cBenedict XVI\u201d archaic \u2014 22,400
\n\u201cBenedict XVI\u201d medieval \u2014 169,000
\n\u201cBenedict XVI\u201d intolerant \u2014 148,000
\n\u201cBenedict XVI\u201d backward \u2014 122,000
\n\u201cBenedict XVI\u201d \u201cHitler Youth\u201d \u2014 30,700
\n\u201cpope cracks down\u201d \u2014 1,080,000<\/p>\n
Thus fully informed on the mind and life of Benedict XVI, the press is as prepared as a pea shooter against field artillery for what happens whenever Benedict actually, you know, says something. So, for instance, when he released his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est, the bafflement was palpable\u2026[the press] is constantly astounded to find that their caricature of him is not true and, with truly childlike reasoning, concludes that Benedict must have \u201cgrown.\u201d
\n[\u2026]
\nCase in point: Bruce Chilton, Bernard Iddings Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College, who writes a review of Benedict\u2019s new book, Jesus of Nazareth, for the New York Sun. The title of the review (\u201cPapal Corrections\u201d) is a promise of things to come, and Chilton does not disappoint. He breathlessly announces the news that the pope has discovered that Christianity ought to have something to do with the teaching of Jesus and the apostles:<\/p>\n
Benedict emphatically sets aside the view that faith amounts to a form of law, and insists that the relationship of the believer to God through Christ defines Christian belief. He does not acknowledge his debt to Martin Luther, but it is palpable\u2026 Theology is sometimes a contact sport, and this may be an example of yesterday\u2019s heresy becoming today\u2019s orthodoxy. A considerable body of non-Catholic biblical scholarship now accepts that Jesus himself taught his disciples mystical union with God, on the basis of the Judaism of his time, so the position Benedict describes is more widely founded than he indicates.<\/em><\/p>\nThis is the sort of thing that leaves so many Catholics at loss for where to even begin. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
You\u2019ll wan to read it all. Then rejoice, rejoice in the realization that we grow ever nearer a time<\/a> when Catholic music at mass will cease to make us go off wailing into the night. That day cannot come soon enough<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Shea writes on the media and it\u2019s perceptions on Benedict: Two years ago, the mainstream media gathered in a special conclave in Rome to discuss the disastrous election to the papacy of Ratzinger the Enforcer, God\u2019s Rottweiler, the hardliner, inflexible, rigid, etc., blah blah. Some of us suggested to our television screens that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,44,251,261],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-benedict-xvi","category-catholicism","category-the-fourth-estate","category-tvpop-culturemusic"],"yoast_head":"\n
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