blogging priests make headlines…

… Fr. Blake and Fr. Finigan speak out against media bias, where moslems are potrayed in a better light then Catholics.

Fr Ray Blake, a leading Catholic blogger who is a parish priest in Brighton, said: “I don’t think it’s fair towards Christianity. There seems to be a rather supine attitude to Islam and a trivialising attitude to Catholicism. I find it worrying.

“Channel 4 has shown quite serious discussions about Islam but nothing that treats Christianity in the same way.”

The Catholic blog Clerical Whispers quoted one commentator as calling the arguments in the programme “intellectually-challenged” and added: “They are on a par with Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code and are unsubstantiated. It shows undisguised disdain for the Catholic Church.”

Another blogging priest, Fr Tim Finigan, said the Channel 4 website highlights the torture and persecution carried out by the Roman Catholic church during the Inquisition, which he said is in contrast to its positive description of Muslims.

He wrote: “My point in posting all this is not to denigrate Islam but rather to draw attention to the kind of treatment that can be given to religion, and how far it is from the customary treatment given to beliefs and practices that are sacred to Christians.”

One commenter on Fr Blake’s blog wrote: “The Commissioning Editor for religious broadcasting at Channel 4 is Aaqil Ahmed, a Muslim. I have long noticed that the only coverage Christianity gets on Channel 4 is in the form of programmes that seeks to undermine the authority of the Church, our traditions and our scripture.” [source]