Ecclesiastical Ignorance in the Media

A biretta tip to my good friend Mark Adams (from whom I get many blogging quotes and ideas). He recently made me aware of the following words from Fr. Neuhaus of First Things:

What prompts me to mention this today is that I'm just off the phone with a reporter from the same national paper. He's doing a story on Pope Benedict's new encyclical. In the course of discussing the pontificate, I referred to the pope as the bishop of Rome. "That raises an interesting point," he said. "Is it unusual that this pope is also the bishop of Rome?" He obviously thought he was on to a new angle. Once again, I tried to be gentle. Toward the end of our talk, he said with manifest sincerity, "My job is not only to get the story right but to explain what it means." Ah yes, he is just the fellow to explain what this pontificate and the encyclical really mean. It is poignant.

This is almost worse than when the BBC reported on John Paul's ceremonial "crow's ear" at the time of the pontiff's death. Of course, they were referring to the crosier. Saints preserve us!

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