Scotland's Cardinal O'Brien appears to be someone who likes to take the bull by the horns. After the controversy he caused last month by his remarks that the United States had no business lecturing the Scottish government over its release of the convicted Lockerbie bomber from Libya over an apparently false medical report that he was dying of terminal cancer (I thought his comments were out of place myself, and worse, uncalled for), this time he's taken on the BBC.
Scottish cardinal accuses BBC
of 'anti-Christian' bias
Britain’s most senior Catholic has accused the BBC
of harbouring an institutional bias against
“Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular”
By Heidi Blake
Sept. 6, 2010
Cardinal Keith O’Brien says the BBC’s news coverage is contaminated by “a radically secular and socially liberal mindset”.
The Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh said the corporation’s intolerance of religion is equivalent to its “massive” political bias against the Conservatives in the 1980s.
He also accused the corporation of plotting a “hatchet job” on the Vatican in a documentary about clerical sex abuse on the eve of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Britain.
Cardinal O’Brien believes that atheists like Professor Richard Dawkins are given a disproportionate amount of airtime while mainstream Christian views are marginalised.
He is also angered by a 15 per cent slump in religious programming over the past 20 years and believes the broadcaster should appoint a religion editor to address the decline.
He said:
“This week the BBC’s director general [Mark Thompson] admitted that the corporation had displayed ‘massive bias’ in its political coverage throughout the 1980s, acknowledging the existence of an institutional political bias.”
“Our detailed research into BBC news coverage of Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular, together with a systematic analysis of output by the Catholic church, has revealed a consistent anti-Christian institutional bias.”
He added that insiders at the BBC had privately admitted that there is a cultural intolerance of Christianity at the corporation.
“Senior news managers have admitted to the Catholic church that a radically secular and socially liberal mindset pervades their newsrooms.
“This sadly taints BBC news and current affairs coverage of religious issues, particularly matters of Christian beliefs.”
Cardinal O’Brien joined calls by the Church of England for the BBC to appoint a religion editor to spearhead the corporation’s coverage of faith issues.
The Rt Revd Nigel McCulloch, Bishop of Manchester and the Church of England’s lead spokesman on communications, made the request last month in a submission to the BBC Trust’s ongoing review of BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 7.
He wrote: "We see no logical distinction between the genre of arts, science and business (all of which include reflecting and discerning between different opinions and perspectives, and have BBC editors) and that of religion.”
Cardinal O’Brien also voiced fears that the broadcaster will use a forthcoming documentary called
Benedict: Trials of a Pope to humiliate the Pontiff on the eve of his visit to Britain.
[Does he have any doubt of that at all? The BBC's 2006 anti-Ratzinger documentary was a preview of just how barbaric and slanderously unfair they can be!]
The programme, which charts the clerical child abuse crisis that has dogged the Catholic church, has been made by
Mark Dowd, a homosexual former Dominican friar. It will be aired on September 15.
[Elementary decency and simple good faith would have counseled the BBC to choose a neutral producer for such a documentary, not someone with multiple axes to grind against the Church! But then, their lead documentary maker for their 2006 slander spree was Ireland's most militant anti-Church activist for having been a sex abuse victim hismelf. Journalistic objectivity is not possible with such lethally loaded dice, and the BBC knows it, but it obviously had no intentions of objectivity in these two documentaries - as in many other things dating back to the Vietnam War, when the BBC ceased to be the institution it was in World War II!]
Senior Catholic figures have suggested that the Pope could meet with victims of abuse by Roman Catholic priests when he visits Britain later this month.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols told BBC1’s Andrew Marr show yesterday: "The pattern of his last five or six visits has been that he has met victims of abuse.
"But the rules are very clear, that is done without any pre-announcement, it is done in private and it is done confidentially, which is quite right and proper so I think we have to wait and see.”
The BBC dismissed Cardinal O’Brien’s criticism of its religious coverage and denied that it had marginalised mainstream religious issues, which it said were placed “at the heart” of its schedule.
A spokeswoman said: “The BBC’s commitment to religious broadcasting is unequivocal. BBC news and current affairs has a dedicated religion correspondent, and works closely with BBC Religion, ensuring topical religious and ethical affairs stories are featured across all BBC networks.”
In response to the Cardinal's attack on the forthcoming documentary by Mr Dowd, she said: "Mark is just one presenter in a range of programming that will include live news and events coverage of the visit itself, and other documentaries across radio and TV."
Earlier city officials of Glasgow, which will host a Papal Mass in its Bellahouston Park, had estimated income from the Pope's 3-hour stay to bring in at least 7-million pounds in revenue... The point is that a major event like the Pope's visit which will draw people to the places where he goes always generates tourist income for the host cities, but not one of all the hundreds of stories that have been filed so far about the costs of the papal visit to the government has ever pointed this out, Glasgow and now Edingurgh have been man enough to say so. When will London and Birmingham own up????
Pope's visit could mean
£4m tourist windfall
for City of Edinburgh
by Ian Swanson
06 September 2010
THE Pope's visit to Edinburgh is set to give the city a multi-million pound economic boost, officials are predicting,
With up to 100,000 people expected to flock to the Capital to see the Pontiff, Scottish Government economists calculate the city could benefit by up to £4 million from overnight stays and visitors spending money in shops and restaurants.
And on top of the immediate rewards, city leaders believe TV pictures of the Pope in Edinburgh beamed around the world will bring a longer-term return in increased tourism.
Pope Benedict XVI is due to fly in to Edinburgh Airport on September 16 at the start of his official four-day visit to the UK.
The
Evening News revealed last month that preparations for the visit could cost the city council up to £400,000 and there will be unspecified policing costs on top of that.
But calculations suggest the Capital stands to gain financially from the occasion.
After his arrival at the airport, Benedict will go directly to the Palace of Holyroodhouse for a meeting with the Queen before being driven through the city in a Popemobile to the home of Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the leader of Scotland's Catholics, in Morningside.
Sources in the Catholic Church say it is impossible to guess how many people will line the streets to see the Pope. One insider said: "It's a weekday when people are working. No one really knows how many will turn out."
But no one doubts there will be an influx of Catholics from across the land to see the Pope pass along Princes Street.
And the economists worked out that if there are around 100,000 extra people here that would mean a boost for the city of between £3.25m and £4m.
A source in the Catholic Church in Scotland said: "These figures are an estimate - though we reckon a pretty good estimate - of the mini-economic windfall the Pope's visit will bring to the city.
"While for Catholics pounds shillings and pence is not the important reason for the visit of Pope Benedict, it does nip in the bud any suggestion that somehow the Pope's visit is not a good deal for the taxpayers of Edinburgh or Scotland.
"The fact is, this will be a fantastic day that everyone can share in and enjoy.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 06/09/2010 22:16]