Catholic Church
High-Jacked by the Media
The media is often accused of being biased;
however, it is far worse than biased. The media frequently distorts the truth
by omitting facts and making up information reported as facts. The father of
what is called ‘Yellow Journalism’ is William Randolph Hearst (1863 -- 1951).
He was an American newspaper publisher who built the nation’s largest newspaper
chain and whose methods profoundly influenced American journalism. He created a
chain of nearly 30 papers in major American cities at its peak, among them the
Los Angeles Examiner, the Boston American, the Atlanta Georgian, the Chicago
Examiner, the Detroit Times, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Washington
Times, the Washington Herald, and his flagship, the San Francisco Examiner. He
later expanded to magazines, creating the largest newspaper and magazine
business in the world.
He
was twice elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives and ran
unsuccessfully for several national level offices. Through his newspapers and
magazines he exercised enormous political influence and was sometimes blamed
for influencing public opinion which pushed the United States into a war with
Spain in 1898. His life story was the inspiration for the lead character in
Orson Welles' film “Citizen Kane.”
Hearst "routinely invented sensational
stories, faked interviews, ran phony pictures and distorted real events."
This approach came to be known as “yellow journalism,” named after The Yellow
Kid, a character in the New York World's color comic strip, Hogan's Alley. One
example is a story he concocted in which a grandmother fell off the bay ferry
and drowned. In reality, Hearst had hired an expert long distance swimmer,
dressed him as a grandmother and instructed him to “accidently” fall off the
ferry. The swimmer did so, shedding clothes as he swam to shore. The following
day Hearst ran a headline warning his readers their grandmothers were not safe
on the bay ferry.
Hearst
used yellow journalism tactics in his New York Journal to whip up popular
support for U.S. military adventurism in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines
in 1898. Hearst's newspaper employees were "willing by deliberate and
shameful lies, made out of whole cloth, to stir nations to enmity and drive them
to murderous war."
Hearst's
"Universal News Bureau" re-wrote the news of the London morning
papers in the Hearst office in New York and then fraudulently sent it out to
American afternoon newspapers under the by-lines of imaginary non-existent
"Hearst correspondents" in London, Paris, Venice, Rome, Berlin, etc.
Hearst was charged with accepting payments from abroad to slant the news.
Today’s
journalists may not have had such a colorful career as Hearst, but they follow
his lead in yellow journalism. They know their publication or TV channel is a
highly competitive commodity and must be sold. Bad news sells! Scary news
sells! If some journalists do not have bad or scary news they will make it up.
In addition, they have their own not-so-hidden agenda of anti-Christianity,
especially anti-Catholicism.
The
resignation of Pope Benedict XVI was a good example of yellow journalism. It
was difficult to follow the conjectures on the reason(s) for his resignation.
One of the lowest level publications indicated he was avoiding arrest for
concealing homosexuality among the Vatican clergy. Somehow, they surmised he
would avoid arrest if he resigned.
The
coverage of the March for Life was another example of slanted journalism. The
march was estimated at about 500,000 people yet it never received the attention
of the Martin Luther King (MLK) march of less than 250,000. The MLK march
received enormous attention at the time and is still a subject of conversation
to this day. Similarly, the Million Man March had about 300,000 people and
received enormous attention. In any coverage the March for Life receives,
included are an equal number of pro-abortion people giving the impression
pro-aborts were in equal numbers, when in truth it was difficult to find a
pro-abort person anywhere near the March.
The
following is a quote from an article by Michael Dorner (who describes
journalists more colorfully than I can) regarding the role of the media: “If
the media are anything, they are dependable --- dependably leftwing and
dependably agendist and dependably half-educated. I checked American and
European sites, Catholic and secular. The secular sites were universal in the
usual liberal garbage: Benedict was regressive; Benedict was conservative;
Benedict was traditionalist; Benedict did not lead the Church on issues like
contraception, abortion, homosexual marriage, women priests, celibacy. One
could not expect more; after all, he was John Paul II's friend and successor.
Benedict disappointed the "progressive" members of the Catholic
Church. (Interpretation: "Progressive" is now the term de jour for
"liberal"; "liberal" is too naked a word, describing the
adherents of liberalism for what they are. Leftwing media such as NPR
habitually term liberals as "progressive." It's the old liberal
canard—they, liberals, stand for progress; all change is progress;
conservatives and traditionalists are hopeless stuck-in-the-muds, are
psychologically indisposed to "progress," etc., etc., etc.”)
Dorner continues to describe leftist
journalism, “Benedict did not do enough for victims of pedophile priests,
Benedict was not the star and showman John Paul II was, Benedict did not appeal
to the crowds as his predecessor did, Benedict alienated Jews, Benedict
alienated Muslims, Benedict never retracted his statement about Mohammedans contributing
nothing but violence, and well he should not have, for such was and is
historical fact—but half-educated journalists who know nothing of history and
very little of anything else do not know what they were in history—and they
choose to ignore what goes on around the world today: Muslims torching
churches, raping Christian girls and women, beheading Christians, imprisoning
or killing those who convert, etc.” (Michael Dorner publishes articles
informing readers of Catholic Radio Association activity.)
The most widespread and successful attack on
the Catholic Church occurred during and after Vatican ll. Many changes in the
Catholic Church were brought on by liberals, including clerics who indicated
falsely that all kinds of changes were a result of the “Spirit of Vatican ll”.
Some of these changes are: saying the entire Mass in the vernacular rather than
Latin(biblical readings and other prayers were allowed in the council), turning
altars around so priests face the congregation, bringing in an army of
Eucharistic ministers at Mass, allowing lay people to give homilies, allowing
female altar servers, receiving communion in the hand, standing up for
reception of Holy Communion, giving nuns the choice to wear or not wear habits,
teaching dissent in the seminaries, allowing a flow of homosexuals into the
priesthood, destroying church statues and sacred art and replacing them with
tasteless, twisted pieces of metal, ripping out communion rails, replacing
Gregorian chant with guitars and drums in protestant-style Christian rock
bands, de-emphasize confession because no one really sins anymore, and besides
no one believes in Hell anymore. None of this is found in the documents of
Vatican ll.
Want
more proof? Surprisingly, nearly every priest, monsignor, bishop and cardinal
performs the consecration at Mass while facing the people; yet the current
General Instructions of the Roman Missal (better known as the GIRM which
instructs the clergy on conducting the Mass) do not state this and, in fact,
after the consecration, instructs the priest to then turn around and face the
people, making the assumption he does not face the people during the
consecration.
In addition to major changes in the Mass, the
other huge change in the Church is in the abortion issue. With almost no
abortion at the time of Vatican ll, we now have thousands abortions each day,
and the majority of Catholics are voting for politicians who support killing
the unborn. Abortion kills babies, yet the media will not admit it is a baby
who is killed. They call an unborn baby a glob of tissue or deny its status as
a human being until it is born. Abortion maims and kills expectant mothers,
but the leftist press and politicians claim abortion benefits women. Birth control
and abortion cause cancer and other medical and psychological problems, but the
results of studies verifying this are rarely publicized.
Pregnancy is viewed through a skewed prism
fashioned according to the leftist publications. We’ve gone down the path of
birth control and abortion to arrive at a sorry destination where pregnancy is
a disease, a preborn baby is a glob of tissue, and the woman getting the
abortion is the heroine.
It has been said that there is no honor among
thieves, and I would add there is no honesty among the vast majority of liberal
journalists.
Kenneth D. Whitehead, a noted author
regarding the church councils, states: “What most attracted the attention of
today’s media about this particular talk of Benedict’s to the Roman clergy was
his assertion that there were actually two Councils. There was the true Council
composed of the Catholic bishops of the world deliberating and deciding about
the faith and practices of the Catholic Church. This true Council, Benedict
noted, “was a Council of the faith seeking to understand the signs of God at
that time, the challenges of God at that time, and to find in the Word of God a
word for today and tomorrow.”
But alongside this true and authentic Council
was another one which, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the pope called “a
Council of the media.” The media viewed the Council, then as now, not from the
standpoint of faith, but rather as what the pope characterized as “a political
struggle… a power struggle between different trends in the Church.” The debates
which took place in the aula (Latin for courtyard) of St. Peter’s were viewed
in purely secular terms; they were seen primarily as an effort to decentralize
“power” in the Church — ultimately, the pope suggested, to democratize the
Church. Since this was how the media viewed the Council, it was how the Council
got reported to the world and came to be understood by the world, including by
not a few Catholics — thus creating a distorted view of the Church herself
which has to some extent endured down to the present day.”
Why did John XXlll instigate Vatican ll? He
said, “The sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught
more efficaciously.” Here, after all, was the heart of the message Christ had
entrusted to his followers to be spread. But to bring about that revival of
evangelization, the structures and methods of the Church needed updating and
renewal that would make them more effective tools. However, what happened? The
changes in the liturgy that came after Vatican II often had little to do with
what the council itself said. It added up to a sharp departure from centuries
of Catholic faith and practice.
The secularist left and left leaning clergy
high jacked the council.
Now
50 years after Vatican ll what are the results? The results from the real
decisions of Vatican II have been disturbingly spotty and incomplete. In some
matters, we actually have fallen back. However, Pope Benedict XVI stated
that he judged this false Council, which he dubbed ”a virtual Council,” to be
finally breaking down, and the real Council, the Council of faith, to be
emerging at long last. “And it is our task, especially in this Year of Faith,”
the pope concluded, “to work so that the true Council with its power of the
Holy Spirit is accomplished and so the Church can be truly renewed.” Lets
all pray Pope Benedict XVI is correct!
Jim
Fritz