This should be read in conjunction with Bruno Mastroianni's reminder (with statistics) in the preceding page of this thread, of all the daily works of charity that the Church performs around the world through its schools, health care and social assistance facilities.
Why the media assault
on the Church
With all of her problems she perseveres
and can't lose because Christ said she couldn't
by David Hartline
July 10, 2010
COLUMBUS, OH (Catholic Online) - The
New York Times's full-fledged assault against the Catholic Church has many mystified and angered, some of whom haven't exactly been on the A-list of orthodox minded Catholics such as Ken Woodward, the former Religion Editor of
Newsweek magazine.
Woodward has said that
Times Editor Bill Keller often referred to himself as a "collapsed Catholic." Why now, many have wondered, and why has
a noted and respected writer [How exactly did she gain that reputation?] like Laurie Goodstein taken part in such an odious display of yellow journalism?
Perhaps it is because the Church hasn't crumbled edespite the devastation of the Abuse Scandal. Perhaps it is because unlike so many churches that have changed their doctrine, the Catholic Church remains true to the teachings of Christ, the Apostles and the 264 subsequent popes since St Peter.
Perhaps it is because Pope Benedict XVI still uses the term, "The Dictatorship of Relativism" that so angers the Catholic Left. The first example of this being the theologically liberal lightning-rod Father Richard O'Brien - who, during CBS News's live coverage of the last Conclave Mass, presided over by then Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, stated that it is safe to say he would not become Pontiff.
Father McBrien went on to say, responding to the 'dictatorship of relativism' charge, that if the cardinal was elected, "Catholics would head to the margins of the Church".
In my book,
The Tide is Turning Toward Catholicism, I note that in addition to the young embracing the teachings of the Church along with her devotions, the Church has experienced an uptick in vocations in the US and an onslaught of vocations in Asia and Africa.
These seminarians and young priests share little in common with the dissidents that often taught at Catholic seminaries in the 1960s and 1970s. In fact, these young men have raised the ire of dissidents as well as those in the Church, including the hierarchy, who are influenced by those misguided souls from the Spirit of 1968.
Has the
New York Times written about these young priests and seminarians? Has the
New York Times written about the growing number of young women in orthodox minded new Catholic orders like the Sisters of Mary of the Eucharist or the Nashville Dominicans who wear the habit and joyfully take part in devotions that many of the older pants suit sisters long ago left behind?
In the case of the Sisters of Mary of the Eucharist, their biggest problem is in twelve short years they have outgrown their motherhouse, something they didn't foresee happening for decades.
No, the
New York Times has not written about these events.
[Nor even of the multitude of concrete works of charity that the Church does daily around the world, as Bruno Mastroianni presents them in overview, ibn his column for Formiche referred to above.] Instead, they have seen fit to excoriate Pope Benedict XVI, a man they once praised for his active role in attacking the Abuse Scandal when he was Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.
Many of the articles are so devoid of facts that they read like a desktop publication one sees when isiting a leftist college campus or an urban politically left-wing enclave.
The
New York Times has seen fit to write favorably about liberal Protestant churches, their leftist voice on politics and liberal theological positions on doctrine, even though their respective memberships are in statistical freefall.
When the presiding Episcopal Bishop of the United States, Katharine Jefferts Schori, said Episcopalians were more intelligent than Catholics because they were environmentally conscious - as opposed to pro-life Catholics, the
New York Times and much of their mainstream media counterparts passed over it. Only the burgeoning Catholic blogosphere cried foul over these remarks.
In 1934, the future Bishop Fulton Sheen in his book
Life of a Galilean outlined the state of religion in the western world - in which modernism was taking hold of some Catholic thinkers, but especially so in many Protestant seminaries.
GK Chesterton (who met and was quite impressed with then Father Sheen) spoke of this phenomenon even earlier. In 1907, Pope Pius X spoke extensively on the disastrous consequences of modernism. Yet, like Pope Benedict XVI today, Pope Pius X was treated with scorn and derision by the self-appointed intelligentsia, as most of the modern Pontiffs have been.
The embattled Pope Paul VI warned against rampant sexual promiscuity and abortion in his famous encyclical
Humanae Vitae in 1968, that fateful year when Europe and America experienced cultural upheaval by forces that were united in their ibntention to destroy religion's place in the modern world.
Perhaps it is because the Church has survived that upheaval that angers liberals like the
New York Times. Those rebelling against God have always stated they know better than God - all the way back to Lucifer, who said "I will not serve."
Cabals of ambulance-chasing attorneys (many of whom are open about their hatred of the Church) have crisscrossed the nation claiming to help victims of the Abuse Scandal.
Have any of them spent time any time helping those who were sexually abused by employees of the big city school systems? There are certainly more victims in these institutions than victims of atholic priests. But it's easier for them to concentrate on priest victims, because they have seen how easy it is to win jury verdicts for great sums to be paid as damages by dioceses....
The Church is gaining in the world, and unlike the dismantling taking place in many liberal Protestant churches, no such white flag is being raised from atop St Peter's in Vatican City....
Recently the Times of London ran a column by a writer who said she believes abortion is murder. - BUT that it was an act vital for women to assert their rights! This is what the new militant atheism and militant secularism are all about - an open rebellion against God. The diatribes against Pope Benedict XVI, the Catholic Church, and the Evangelicals churches which adhere to classical Christian doctrine constitute part of the secular drive against God.
David J Hartline has worked for 20 years as a Catholic school teacher, coach, principal and diocesan administrator. Frustrated because the good was not being reported, Hartline wrote The Tide is Turning Toward Catholicism which chronicles the many positive developments occurring in the Church.