My friend Rod Dreher offers two completely irreconciliable propositions over at his blog:
Proposition 1: MSM Journalists are the Church’s best friend.
Proposition 2: In Scripture, God often uses the enemies of His people to chastise them, and to bring them to repentance.
So… what? The Assyrians who wrought slaughter on the northern kingdom and doomed them to their fate as the Ten Lost Tribes were Israel’s best friend? Journalists are like Assyrians? Friends are enemies? Enemies are friends? One of these Propopsitions is not like the other.
Look. I can grant that *God*, who orders all things for the good of those in Christ Jesus, can use bitter enemies of the Church to bring about redemption and healing. But please: let’s make up our mind. Are journalists who do slipshod hatchet jobs on Benedict “the Church’s best friend” or are they “enemies of His people”? I think it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that, whatever God may have in mind, the authors of this war on Benedict do not regard themselves as “best friends of the Church” and that the self-congratulation of journalists for their shoddy reportage is as repulsive as the self-congratulation of abusers who lectured their victims to sit there, shut up and take it due to the abusers’ sanctity as priests and as mediators of Truth. Spare me.
Rod’s two Propositions remind me of a quote my son found somewhere: “An enemy is just a friend who wants to kill you.”
By all means, emphasize Isaiah 10’s point that Assyria was a rod of punishment against Israel and that, under God, the bitterest foe of Jesus Christ can be used to bring glory to God and redemption to his people. But please. This group of frenzied MSM sharks bent on destroying Benedict and engaging in their annual Holy Week Church Bash on the flimsiest charges are not the Church’s"friends”, nor do they give a tinker’s damn about the good of the Church or abused children who are not usefully Catholic. You might as well tell me that Mehmet Ali Acga (whom these sharks did not fail to consult for his expert opinion) was just trying to help John Paul II grow closer to Christ Crucified when he shot him. Jimmy Akin has methodically taken apart the NY Times crapalicious reporting. Real “friends” at the Times (London and New York) would acknowledge they did a lousy job and apologize (as for instance, NBC did when they libeled the Pope as a child molester). Enemies, however, admit nothing. And enemies of the Church is just what these people act like. God will, of course, bring life out of the sins of pervert priests, bad bishops *and* bad reporters. But with the exception of a few journalists with actual integrity and knowledge of the facts like John Allen, the spectacle leading up to the annual MSM Bash Christianity for Holy Week Fest has been a depressingly ignorant and ideology-driven affair. To be sure, what the MSM meant for evil, God means to turn to good. But they do indeed, largely mean to do evil in this recent spate of hatchet jobs on Benedict.
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They simply noticed that people aren’t reacting in the way that they expected, and now they are hiding their real intentions. Or may be some people are innocent enough to believe in the “good intentions” of the media http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303960604575158310656792820.html
Very good observation, Mark. A friend is honest, not one who gives you a smile on one side and a knife on the other - “et tu, Brute?”. The principle plays out in every age - the age-old examples are only llustrations of the same.
I’m a Catholic and an Assyrian American. Those that I care for the most outside of my family are Jewish and not my enemies. I’m also a reporter for a daily news paper. When I write a story about the police department failing the community, I don’t pretend to be their best friend. I am doing my job by helping the department weed out their bad apples, and guess what? The good cops, the ones who joined the department to make a difference, are secretly glad we journalists did our job. Same thing with priests. If the Vatican chose to hide perverted priests, they need to be forced into the public eye. Only the light, even the public spotlight, can cleanse them and make them face their misdeeds.
Quick Response to Shayla…
I agree - the truth needs to come out! I don’t think anyone is arguing that we need to protect evil priests. What responsible Catholics are saying is…insist that your reporting is accurate. If it turns out that you made a mistake - then say you are sorry for misleading the public. However, this is not the tact of the NY Times. They run a story they want to fun with an outcome that matches their ideology.
In addition, we need some Catholics on the Sunday shows that actually know what they are talking about, armed with the truth, will defend the Church against what ends up to be “false reporting.”
Does more need to be done? Yes. Have we taken GREAT steps to stop this scandal. Yes. Catholics need to stop their retreat and with humility stand up for the attacks that are based in a lie with just traces of just enough truth to fool the unsuspecting.
Dreher’s propositions are just silly.
We all know that IN THE END God will make evil fruitful, but it certainly isn’t perceptible to humans how this is going to happen and therefore we shouldn’t go along with evil thinking that in the end it will work out.
Big picture, small picture, and we have to act accordingly.
It is God’s job to turn this situation around for the salvation of souls and the good of His Church.
Our job is to search for the truth and demand justice when it is intentionally ignored or falsely presented.
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