Very, very interesting piece entitled "Publisher's Perspective" in today's edition of The Sunday Times. You can link to it here.
As some may recall, retired Scranton Bishop Joseph Martino mainly refused to speak to the secular media, for reasons that sometimes seemed strange, paranoid and down-right wrong. It's refreshing to note that his boss, Cardinal Rigali, seems to have a different perspective on the secular media. Now don't get me wrong: I don't believe everything I see and read in the media. But conversely, I don't believe that the media is on an "anti-________________ (fill the blank with anything important you'd like..."American", "Catholic", "Religion", etc.)" mission either. The media is a flawed institution, like all institutions run by flawed humans. Each of us can choose to see only the flaws (as retired Bishop Martino apparently chose to do) or you can chose to acknowledge the flaws and find some way to use it for good. It's pretty clear that Cardinal Rigali's perspective is more the latter than the former. I, for one, am glad.
1 comment:
Hello Steve,
By now I am sure you have seen that Miltz and Bambara met. Miltz is "hopeful." According to the Scranton Times the meeting went well.
I disagree with your assessment about the media. It is well known the media has a liberal bias. The Scranton Times is extremely biased. I don't believe they gave Bishop Martino a chance. For the most part of his tenure, they did nothing but criticize him, and slant articles against him.
How about the headline "Bishop adds collection to boost priest benifits." This implied that collection was for all priests so we can get more money, and more perks. Of course that is NOT what the collection is for. It is for the education and training of priests, and also the retired priests pensions. NO priest sees this collection directly in their salries or benifits. Why was it news that the Diocese added a second collection anyway? If the Baptist Church did that- you think the times would do a whole write up on that? You think they would CARE? The fact that it was ONLY the Catholic Church the wrote on shows their bias.
When people say "The bishop didn't communicate" or "The bishop didn't consult" what they really mean is "The bishop closed their parish, how DARE HE?" "The bishop didn't do what WE WANTED, how DARE HE?" "How DARE the bishop make decisions that go against the popular vote? This is America! We are by the people, for the people, and of the people! Power to the people!" That, Steve is what people really mean.
And therein lies the problem. People think the Church operates soley FOR THEM. They think the Church revolves around THEM. The Church does NOT revolve around them, it revolves around GOD. I submit that if people started asking what they can do for the Church, and what they can offer the Church, instead of making demands about what the Church BETTER do FOR THEM OR ELSE, we would be a lot better off.
Father Dave Bechtel
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