World Youth Day is coming up in a couple of weeks so the Boston Globe Magazine has decided to round up a bunch of young Catholics to show how out of touch the Catholic Church is.
World Youth Day is coming up in a couple of weeks so the Boston Globe Magazine has decided to round up a bunch of young Catholics to show how out of touch the Catholic Church is.
Their views match basically what is getting preached on Sundays. The Office of “Protection” from the Worcester Diocese came to my parish carping about women’s ordination. She had a Master’s from BC and was hired by the former Bishop….should we expect anything different from the undergrads?
I’ve been going to Mass pretty steadily for 5 years now …. never once have I heard a homily taking the Catholic stand on homo-marriage, birth control, abortion, priestesses…etc etc etc.
The other week the Deacon at my new parish mentioned “Hell”. I was shocked!
I found interesting this comment from one of the young women, now at BC:
As you say, “Only one of them is even close to being a knowledgeable Catholic, one who holds to and understands the faith.” Perhaps it’s just a coincidence, but he’s the one from Fall River, and thus the only one of the five who grew up outside the Archdiocese of Boston.
Sadly, I’ve come to just expect this everytime I read about the Church in a secular paper. They load up on uninformed Catholics but make sure they throw in the token “conservative” to make it seem like they’re writing this objective article. Paiva does try to hold ground, but you could see how he was buckling and becoming apologetic for his beliefs under the weight of the rest of the group.
If I can spin off of this, The Denver Post last week ran a ridiculous series on a super progressive parish as the microcosm for the American church and its relationship to Rome. The two writers, whose views of Catholicism seem to come from Hollywood stereotypes, essentially use the series to go one-by-one over the “controversial issues” among American Catholics—abortion, contraception, married priests, homosexual lifestyle, annulments, role of women, etc…—and then show how the laity are circumventing the Vatican. The writers try to throw in the token faithful Catholic, but they’re usually portrayed as repressed, ignornant people who follow the church’s teachings just because, as one headline reads, “the church is like a team, and you do what the coach says.” In one article, the DRE explains how she tells parishioners to let their conscience be their ultimate guide when it comes to following church doctrine: “It’s not good enough to do what the bishop says. You have to read about it, reflect upon it, pray about it, be in dialogue with other Catholics about it, and check with other sources of authority in the church.”
What’s sadder is I bet this series gets picked up over the wire by several papers.
Go to [url=http://www.denverpost.com]http://www.denverpost.com[/url] and type “Pax Christi” into the search engine and you’ll get the seven or so stories individually.
With that series and the Globe piece, I just don’t see how anyone can honestly say there isn’t a bias against the Catholic Church in most mainstream media.
After reading the Globe piece, I really hope BXVI lays down the hammer at World Youth Day. And if he did, I bet most of the youth there really would love it … although you can bet the media will search out the few angry youth and present them as the voice of American Catholic youth.
I have come to regard the religious, social, political and economic news in most of the mainstream press as a Soviet citizen would have regarded Pravda—just ignore most of it as prejudicial. I read the local papers for the local news minus the above categories. I am not surprised that the “Boston Globe Magazine” would run this type of article. The “Chicago Tribune Magazine” would do the same.
We almost never read about the phenomenal growth of the traditional Catholic Church, the resurgence of faith, the new orhtodox orders, the success of the Tritentine mass, the boredom of most Catholics with the whole nonissue of womyn’s ordination, the anger at lousy homilies and worse music. Because these factors undercut the whole edifice of secular America and its liberal religious allies.
Somehow the notion that our news media is or should be objective got into our collective minds. It has never been the case. We have varying degrees of blatant propaganda—unfortunately, the left press is the most ubiquitous. Once upon a time, we had a better distribution of politics in the press with an active voice for conservatism—the “Chicago Tribune” being a good example. But the “Trib” is almost now a Midwest version of the “Globe” and “NYT”. Look to the schools of journalism and academia for a reason.
Yet, sooner or later, the evidence of a strong, unbending conservatism will hit them in the face. They can only ignore it for so long.
It really is a clash of religions. I don’t think that market forces will change the MSM until some of the great papers and networks start to fold in the face of media outlets that circumvent the whole MSM/academia axis like the blogs are starting to do. I think that many media types have really come to believe deeply in all of that LLL/PC c**p to the extent that they would rather go down with the ship than give orthodox Christianity a fair shake. I only read the LA Times anymore for the sports news.
The Boston Globe oughta take a trip to the Phatmas phorums and see the Catholic faith alive and well in young people.
http://www.phatmass.com
It is interesting that no liberal and secular rag interviewed any of the youthful participants who were on the Pilgramage to Chartres. But what would one expect?
It will be interesting to see the turn out and the enthusiam for the Tradional segment of World Youth Day in Germany.
“…it highlights the sad state of Catholic education.”
Ay-yup. I had a religion teacher in a Catholic high school tell us that we would go to Purgatory or Heaven whereas our Hindu classmate would be reincarnated. Doesn’t that make sense!
In the three years since I’ve discovered that the church actually has things like REASONS for the things it teaches! Gee whiz! Well, gotta admit, theology tends to run a little long for a banner slogan.
How I wish I were going to World Youth Day. :’(
Will the Boston Globe do a follow up article when THOUSANDS of young faithfull Catholics show up to show devotion to their faith?
Funny but none of these Catholics actually said anything about Christ. They are more worried about various forms off sexual recreation and wondering why a woman cannot be a man. I guess the mystery of the Incarnation, the Trinity, human free will, original sin, the sacraments etc are not difficult for any of these little saints to understand…
And I love this one ” I know a lot of Catholics who are having sex and won’t take birth control, and they are troubled by the risks they’re taking…” meaning of course many of them are fornicating like hell without even considering what they are doing. And the “risks”? Hell? Separation from God’s love? Or by risks do they mean babies LOL!!
As Fr. Larry said during Mission Week… “They aren’t the Catholic Church’s rules. They are God’s rules.”
Nothing wrong with those kids that good catechesis and parenting wouldn’t cure.
IMO Theology on Tap is a great program for keeping 20-somethings active in their faith and for ongoing education about Catholicism. (Of course the last priest we had come to talk didn’t necessarily stick to orthodoxy but whatever.)
BillH,
I was going to mention the same Denver Post series. My inner conspiracy theorist told me to check if the papers are owned by the same company, but it doesn’t look like it.