That post, asianpilgrim, was food for thought.
Western secular media tend to expect Western secular standards, and they are upset when not everyone shares their perspective . . .
-- John
They certainly don't understand the Church.
Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver spoke in Washington DC yesterday, and had some comments about the media.
http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory_print.asp?number=94387Noting Mother Teresa’s joke that she’d rather bathe a leper than meet the press, Archbishop Chaput said many people in the Church, especially active Catholics, might feel similarly wary of the media.
“Now it turns out that I don’t feel the same way,” he told the journalists. “In my experience, dealing with the press has usually been rather enjoyable. I’ve worked with some very good journalists. I don’t think we should ever fear the truth. And I tend to like challenging questions.”
However, he said some reporters and editors have been “uniquely frustrating” because “too often they really don’t know their subject; or they dislike the influence of religion; or they have unresolved authority issues; or they resent Catholic teachings on sex; or they’d rather be covering the White House, but this is the only beat they could get.”
“I don’t expect journalists who track the Church to agree with everything she teaches. But I do think reporters should have a working knowledge of her traditions and teachings,” he commented, advocating that editors have a “basic Catholic vocabulary” to understand Catholic topics and motivations.
As an example of journalistic neglect, he said that in twenty years as a bishop, no reporter had asked him why he so often refers to the Church as “she” and “her” instead of “it.”
“I find that extremely odd, because those pronouns go straight to the heart of Catholic theology, life and identity.”
