Showing posts with label [blog - must know]. Show all posts
Showing posts with label [blog - must know]. Show all posts
Good old non-bias media gone.
I agree with Deacon Greg’s post about the media’s bias reporting. I feel the same way. The media doesn’t realize that any good religious news can serve as an inspiration to many people who are struggling in their life and faith right now especially during this difficult times.
Continue>>>One of the biggest surprises of Pope Benedict's historic trip to the United Kingdom may be how few people realize that it was, in fact, historic.
Sunday night, I was chatting by phone with my father-in-law in Maryland. I told him I'd been busy with the papal coverage all weekend.
"Didn't seem like much happened," he said.
"Really?," I replied. "He was the first pope to visit the Church of England's Westminster Abbey. He stood there with the Archbishop of Canterbury, side by side, as they both pronounced the final blessing and made the sign of the cross together."
"He did that?" My father-in-law sounded genuinely surprised.
"He went to the hall where Thomas More was sentenced to death and delivered a speech about religion to the civil leaders of Great Britain."
"He did?"
"And he took part in his first beatification: Cardinal John Henry Newman, an Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism."
I could almost hear him scratching his bald head. "How come nobody said anything about that?"
Now, my father-in-law is a pretty smart guy, and what you might consider an observant Catholic. He attends mass every morning. He keeps up on current events. Now retired from the FDA, he regularly checks in with the Washington Post, USA TODAY, MSNBC and CNN. But he was baffled that this stuff I was telling him wasn't on the nightly news.
"All we saw down here," he explained, "was that he met with sex abuse victims."
I started to wonder what sort of coverage the trip had received. After I hung up the phone, I searched through several newspaper websites. I clicked on the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe. Nothing, nothing, nothing. None of them mentioned on their home page the pope's just-completed trip.
When I got to work on Monday, I searched CNN Newsource, which provides newsfeeds to my show, ";Currents," as well as to countless other news programs around the country. I found a grand total of one item, running about a minute long, slugged "Anti-Pope Demonstrations."
That was it.
Based on my conversation with my father-in-law, you could be forgiven for thinking that the pope made the trip just to meet with victims of sex abuse -- and that a lot of Britons were ticked off about it.
Now, I know: it's tempting to argue that it was a conspiracy of media bias. But I think there's something sadder and less sinister at work: it's the economy, stupid. The religion beat, in most places, just doesn't exist anymore. (Ironic, considering that a recent report says it's something that people crave.) But it's one of the first things to be cut in a budget crunch. In television news, the days when CNN had a Delia Gallagher or ABC had a Peggy Wehmeyer are long gone. It's worse at newspapers, many of which are on life support, gasping for air. Truly historic moments, potentially earth-shifting events, like the pope's trip to the UK, are going under-reported, or un-reported, or mis-reported. They get coverage, but not necessarily from a regular reporter, who understands the nuances of the beat. As a result, they happen in a void, without any real context beyond the hot-button issues of sex or violence or protest. And isn't it sad: that seems to be all that we hear about religion -- any religion -- in the media these days.
Call me old school, but there's something wrong here.
If my father-in-law, a fairly well-informed guy in the pews, didn't know what he didn't know, I have to wonder: how many others in the pews are also being left in the dark?
Stephen Colbert's video response on Stephen Hawking's "God does not exist"
Here is the must watch video:
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| March to Keep Fear Alive | ||||
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23 Reasons Why A Priest Should Wear His Collar
By Msgr. Charles M. Mangan & Father Gerald E. Murray
Here are the first 10 reasons:
#1 The Roman collar is a sign of priestly consecration to the Lord. As a wedding ring distinguishes husband and wife and symbolizes the union they enjoy, so the Roman collar identifies bishops and priests (and often deacons and seminarians) and manifests their proximity to the Divine Master by virtue of their free consent to the ordained ministry to which they have been (or may be) called.
#2 By wearing clerical clothing and not possessing excess clothes, the priest demonstrates adherence to the Lord's example of material poverty. The priest does not choose his clothes - the Church has, thanks to her accumulated wisdom over the past two millennia. Humble acceptance of the Church's desire that the priest wear the Roman collar illustrates a healthy submission to authority and conformity to the will of Christ as expressed through his Church.
#3 Church Law requires clerics to wear clerical clothing. We have cited above number 66 of the Directory for priests, which itself quotes canon 284.
#4 The wearing of the Roman collar is the repeated, ardent desire of Pope John Paul 11. The Holy Father's wish in this regard cannot be summarily dismissed; he speaks with a special charism. He frequently reminds priests of the value of wearing the Roman collar.In a September 8, 1982 letter to Ugo Cardinal Poletti, his Vicar for the Diocese of Rome, instructing him to promulgate norms concerning the use of the Roman collar and religious habit, the Pontiff observed that clerical dress is valuable "not only because it contributes to the propriety of the priest in his external behavior or in the exercise of his ministry, but above all because it gives evidence within the ecclesiastical community of the public witness that each priest is held to give of his own identity and special belonging to God."In a homily on November 8, 1982 the Pope addressed a group of transitional deacons whom he was about to ordain to the priesthood. He said that if they tried to be just like everyone else in their "style of life" and "manner of dress," then their mission as priests of Jesus Christ would not be fully realized.
#5 The Roman collar prevents "mixed messages"; other people will recognize the priest's intentions when he finds himself in what might appear to be compromising circumstances. Let's suppose that a priest is required to make pastoral visits to different apartment houses in an area where drug dealing or prostitution is prevalent. The Roman collar sends a clear message to everyone that the priest has come to minister to the sick and needy in Christ's name. Idle speculation might be triggered by a priest known to neighborhood residents visiting various apartment houses dressed as a layman.
#6 The Roman collar inspires others to avoid immodesty in dress, words and actions and reminds them of the need for public decorum. A cheerful but diligent and serious priest can compel others to take stock of the manner in which they conduct themselves. The Roman collar serves as a necessary challenge to an age drowning in impurity, exhibited by suggestive dress, blasphemous speech and scandalous actions.
#7 The Roman collar is a protection for one's vocation when dealing with young, attractive women. A priest out of his collar (and, naturally, not wearing a wedding ring) can appear to be an attractive target for the affections of an unmarried woman looking for a husband, or for a married woman tempted to infidelity.
#8 The Roman collar offers a kind of "safeguard "for oneself. The Roman collar provides a reminder to the priest himself of his mission and identity: to witness to Jesus Christ, the Great High Priest, as one of his brother-priests.
#9 A priest in a Roman collar is an inspiration to others who think: "Here is a modern disciple of Jesus." The Roman collar speaks of the possibility of making a sincere, lasting commitment to God. Believers of diverse ages, nationalities and temperaments will note the virtuous, other-centered life of the man who gladly and proudly wears the garb of a Catholic priest, and perhaps will realize that they too can consecrate themselves anew, or for the first time, to the loving Good Shepherd.
#10 The Roman collar is a source of beneficial intrigue to non-Catholics. Most non- Catholics do not have experience with ministers who wear clerical garb. Therefore, Catholic priests by virtue of their dress can cause them to reflect - even if only a cursory fashion - on the Church and what she entails.
Read the rest here.
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