Several people have written to ask me if I’d heard about this “Pope Joan” silliness that ABC News did a breathless special on Thursday night. Yes, I’ve been seeing promos for weeks and gave it no credence. I knew this was all a farce when I read about it in “Pope Fiction” by Patrick Madrid where he explained that it wasn’t real.
For those of you who haven’t read “Pope Fiction” (and you really should; it’s very useful) you can see the de-bunking of Pope Joan at Insight Scoop where Carl Olson does the honors.
Technorati Tags: anti-Catholic, Catholic-bashing, media bias, pope
Dom:
Not for nothing is television referred to as the “boob tube.” And not for nothing did the late Professor Neil Postman of NYU warn us especially of watching any allegedly serious programs on the tube—for the reason that the medium is geared toward the easily digestible, sensational, and spectacular. He had particularly unkind words for PBS, not to mention the trash found on ABC, CBS, NBC, ad nauseum. Television does not and cannot not lend itself to thoughtfulness as it is is simply not constructed that way.
But as we have the FDA to protect us from dangerous snake oils, we have serious scholars to protect us from harmful fictions posing as facts. And just as we still have people peddling miracle cures in ads from anything from hair growth to eternal youth, we have Catholic baiters selling pop fiction in the guise of scholarship. It’s a shame that many of these folks even wind up teaching in Catholic universities. One need only think of some of the goofy statemets of Mary Daly and Dominic John Crossan. The gullible, which includes a number of religious from the progressive remnant, may swallow this stuff and allude to it, but it will mostly pass over people who are already glutted with an overload of dubious infomercials and trivia to begin with. Until ABC has some dead space to sell in another five years and resurrects it under the pretense of examining some worthy studies that are but contrived propoganda.
ABC boycott, anyone?
ABC has been boycotted in my house for years.
I think Pope Bambi sounds better, don’t you think?
“Tabloid history.” A story claiming that Bat Boy was the true pope would be more entertaining, and likely more truthful.
Pope Fiction.
I like that.
This Pope Joan is not listed in my Bible. The Pope in the years claimed for Pope Joan are well-documented (though the three digit years seem awefully distant to athiests and most protestants.)
Pope Leo IV, a saint whose life is well-documented (probably better-documented than the life of any other 9th century Christians besides Charlemagne and Alfred the Great), reigned from 847-855.
He was succeeded by Pope Benedict III from 855-858, who was also well-documented because of his role in the disputes between the heirs to the Carolingian throne and the Anastasius affair with the Eastern Churches.
His successor, Pope Saint Nicholas, was also well-documented because of his diplomatic initiatives and he reigned from 858-867.