Go on, kick us again
Damian Thompson, a Catholic, is in a frothing rage – not at the pope or the all-male hierarchy of his authoritarian church, but at the Times for reporting on it.
There is international outrage in Catholic circles over a headline in The Times this morning that many people regard as utterly misleading and part of the newspaper’s reliably biased coverage (reinforced by vicious cartoons) of anything to do with Pope Benedict XVI…A universally admired Catholic journalist contacted me this morning and accused The Times of (and I am toning this down for legal reasons) an extremely serious error of judgment.
A universally admired Catholic journalist? There is no such thing. There’s no universally admired anything, and certainly not a Catholic journalist. Thompson is clearly very keen to give the impression that the outrage he is describing and attributing is widespread. It may be, but his heated rhetoric doesn’t convince me of that.
Another respected commentator, the American journalist Phil Lawler, takes the headline to pieces on CatholicCulture.org.
There it is again. He’s citing Catholics as authorities for the unfairness of coverage of a Catholic issue, without so much as acknowledging the potential for bias, but instead simply announcing that his chosen Catholics are admired and respected. Admired and respected by whom? Other Catholics? Other loyalist Catholics? Other Catholics so loyal that for them the church can do no wrong? Other Catholics so loyal that they are more worried about the coverage than they are about the reality of what the church has been doing all this time? That’s the appearance he gives, at least.
Thompson quotes the ‘respected’ Lawler (ironically named, he turns out to be):
Here’s what we know: While the Pope was Archbishop of Munich, a priest there was accused of sexual abuse. He was pulled out of ministry and sent off for counseling. Then-Cardinal Ratzinger was involved in the decision to remove the priest from his parish assignment – got that? remove him.
Yes, got that. But what he wasn’t, was ‘pulled out of ministry and sent off’ to the police. Got that? The police. What he was accused of was a crime, and not no victimless crime, neither, but a peculiarly nasty crime against people. Ratzinger was involved in this failure to report a crime to the police. Got that? To report a crime.
Several years later, long after Cardinal Ratzinger had moved to a new assignment at the Vatican, the priest was again accused of sexual abuse. A grievous mistake was made in this case; that much is clear now, and the vicar general has sorrowfully taken responsibility for the error. Could you say that the future Pontiff should have been more vigilant? Perhaps. But to suggest that he made the decision to put a pedophile back in circulation is an outrageous distortion of the facts.
Is it? Really? In particular, is it really an outrageous distortion? In a sense it’s more of a distortion not to put it that way. Lawler is an American, so he should be aware of the crime of reckless endangerment. He’s right that we don’t know, and it’s not likely, that Ratzinger said ‘let’s not report this priest to the cops so that he can go back into circulation as a pedophile later on.’ But the fact is that that’s what happened, and the not reporting the priest to the cops wasn’t the best way to prevent its happening.
Thompson finishes up by shouting at Ruth Gledhill for saying, ‘The Pope is pretty unassailable. He is not elected…’ Thompson points out, acidly, that there is such a thing as a conclave. Well yes, but ‘elected’ is commonly used to mean ‘democratically elected’ – elected by the people as a whole, not elected by a tiny powerful exclusive secretive body of celibate men. The pope is not ‘elected’ by Catholics, he is ‘elected’ by some cardinals. That makes a difference.
Thompson continues the theme later.
Fr Tim Finigan, one of the most respected traditionalist priests in England and certainly its most influential priest-blogger, described it as a “Disgraceful attack on the Holy Father in The Times”…There is a wider perception that The Times’s entire coverage of the scandals in the Catholic Church, including Peter Brookes’s revolting cartoons, has the flavour of an anti-Catholic crusade…Let me quote my colleague Cristina Odone, former editor of The Catholic Herald: “I have been shocked by the Times’s anti-Catholic coverage.”
Same stuff, see? Loose references to respected and influential and wider perception, and citation of Catholics without mention of the possibility of pro-church bias.
What I’d like to do is put The Times’s elder statesman, Lord Rees-Mogg, on the spot. How can he, as a former editor of the paper and a devout and distinguished Catholic, stand by as the paper he loves traduces the Holy Father?
And there you have theist slavishness at its most revolting.
This reminds me of nothing so much as Muslims immediately rushing to defend Islam whenever some atrocity is committed by an Islamist fanatic in the name of Islam, or the seemingly greater concern that Islam’s image may be tarnished than disgust and horror over the heinous actions (which are so commonplace nowdays they barely elicit a shrug). Just replace “Muslim” with “Catholic” in the previous sentence, and it exactly sums up this situation — a perfunctory acknowledgement that some wrongs were committed (nobody seems especially surprised by the cover-up anymore), but far more anger and concern over the media and how the’re making the Church look bad.
They may not like being compared to Muslims in that fashion, but if the shoe fits…
Part of the problem here is that there is a hazy line of demarkation in Catholic theology; it is never quite clear where the Infallible Church stops and God begins.
Thus Luther’s immortal hymn could have opened with the line “A mighty fortress is our Church” and lost none of its force or meaning. Except that it is now clear that many in the clergy have decided that it’s time to abandon the outer defences and take to the (inner) keep.
The image the Church wishes the public to have of it is one of holiness, kindness and love, and if reality is otherwise then it does not take the hierarchy long to come up with reasons as to why the faithful and the public generally should, for their own welfare, be kept right out of the loop.
The Mafia used to run protection rackets, selling protection from themselves. In this endeavour, cultivation of a tough and ruthless public image was important. The Church is also running a protection racket, on the face of it protecting people from the wrath of God, and in this it seeks to cultivate a public image somewhat different from the Mafia standard. But at least one can see where they are coming from.
Priests who behave like hoodlums on the legendary streets of Chicago, taking what they please from people who cannot defend themselves, are not good for the Church’s image, and can even compromise the hierarchy when the latter, understandably, seek to head off the spectre of a united collective defiance and defence made by by the suckers they depend on.
Thus the commotion of the Times. Pardon the pun.
A universally-respected Communist journalist has just (rather belatedly) contacted me in a right old bate about the disgraceful coverage of Comrade Stalin’s enlightened policies in Ukraine. A few isolated instances of entire communities being wiped out have been trumped up beyond all proportion by the capitalist running dogs of the gutter press.
Joe Stalin, Joe Kennedy, Joe McCarthy, Joe Ratzinger, Joe the Plumber – the Joes have a lot to answer for.
Yes OB, I can see them all lined up beside one another at the Last Judgement (the Adolphs, Benitos and Charlies having been already ticked off and dispensed with). Alphabetical order would place Ratzinger immediately to the right of Stalin (or should that be the left?). Of your list, probably only Joe the Plumber would get picked for the upwards escalator, though I would incline to put in a good word for Joe the Barman. For what it was worth.
I arranged them roughly chronologically (in terms of their influence rather than their specific dates), though the Joes Stalin and Kennedy are a little tricky…but Kennedy was around longer, so I put him second.
No upward escalator for Mr the Plumber. He’s for the high jump simply for being such a relentless pain in the ass. (In other words he has to pay for McCain’s awful habit of referring to him as ‘myfriendJoethePlumber.’ Nobody said life was fair.)
Hell. With you on the door, not even Sarah Palin’s doppelganger would have a chance.
They both have to spend all eternity dancing with wolves.
Hahahahahaha
One thing the past five years have cemented for me is the fact that nothing – nothing – sends people into irrational apoplexy faster, or more deeply, than having their unearned social capital and prestige questioned. Or even remarked upon. I still find it astonishing that people who are, likely, fairly reasonable in other spheres, shut their brains off, scream, pitch fits, and just make stuff up when you question the legitimacy of their unearned standing.
I’ve seen this happen when consumer groups question industry claims, of course, and you can think of other examples. Questioning the social prestige and standing of a class of people (especially if it’s merely accidental, and unearned) does seem to be a universal trigger to temper tantrums. The religious and faitheists have refined it to an essence, though.
Make no mistake – they’re not angry to have their particular beliefs questioned (virgin births, etc.), even if they claim that they are. They’re uncontrollably upset about the implicit or implicit interrogation of the exalted social standing that they believe they’re entitled to.
It’s of a piece with homophobes who claim they’re upset at the “harm to children” or whatnot that would allegedly result from gay marriage. Nope. They’re terrified and angry to have their “brand” diluted – to be forced to accept that they no longer occupy a social pedestal from which they can spit on outsiders.
I am not sure that rushing to the defence of the Holy Mother Church is entirely reflexive. I was “born” (that is to say baptised in infancy)in the church, raised and educated by them and I feel absolutely no need whatosever to rush to their aid. In fact, if it were left up to me, I’d confiscate all their property, compensate their victims, jail the guilty ones and put the rest in a nice home where they could do no further damage.
On the bright side, the shrill squawking of church apologists would seem to indicate that they’ve been genuinely stung by this whole affair and are aware of their vulnerability. Of course, the fact that they’re responding by doubling down on their victim-blaming and their sanctimonious claims to be above the law isn’t nearly as cheering. Thompson’s editorial is just a few short steps away from claiming that the children are at fault for tempting the priests into raping them.
As evil as these pontificating paedophile priests preaching chastity and poverty while living in castles full of stolen art treasures are, reading the comments by catholic apologists in the articles makes me realize that these pathetic old men would at best be marginalized sociopathic sexual predators slinking around the periphery of society but for the support and undeserved respect they receive from moderate catholics.
These are the people who need to wake up and realize the damage that their irrational beliefs cause.
Josh Slocum: spot on.
This is “just” another case of an intelligent, educated person, who has been completely brainwashed by [insert name of murderous theology here]. They then ignore all the evidence, and whine… “But this is the holy [etc as before], they MUST be all right!”
Reason and evidence do not seem to enter into the picture whatsoever.
Is this the same Damian Thompson that wrote Counterknowledge? That was an (I thought) utterly sensible book …
Yes it is, and I too thought Counterknowledge was v sensible. Damian Thompson must be a real whizz at compartmentalization.
Update.
D. Thompson is at it AGAIN:
HERE … and this time he’s calling it a “malicious storm”.
On the compartmentalisation, he attempts to explain himself here:
http://www.sceptic.org.uk/podcasts/little-atoms/102-8-february-2008-damian-thompson
(needless to say, I don’t find his line of argument entirely convincing)