Not brilliant at all, but better than nothing.
The suggestion that the words Paedophile and Priest were [ no dates given, naturally, ] almost synonymous is untrue and I wonder if the script writers ever would consider how offensive to Catholics or indeed Catholic Priests such glib alliteration is.
In the porch of my Church is a notice telling you how to report people for abuse. It lists the diocesan and parish representatives and then says to phone 999 in the case of immediate danger. Hardly a recipe for a cover up.
I cannot think of any other group in this country which is subject to the vicious questioning and relentless negativity that Catholics have to put up with on the BBC.
Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor is over 80. I am not aware of another man of such an age subject to the lengthy, hostile questioning that he was subject to this morning and btw, the correct way of addressing a Cardinal is, Your Eminence.
Your reporting of Catholicism bears no relation whatever to my experience as a Catholic in Britain.
Thank goodness for the Internet. It is entirely possible to follow all the events from Rome without having recourse to the BBC.
@Papalsmokestack is what I shall be following.
8 comments:
Thank you for this post. Contrary to Damien Thompson, I thought the cardinal did well in the face of vicious questioning. What makes governance a platitude? JH was angling for reform (presumably of Church teaching), but any reform only applies to governance.
The Church has always had sinners, even at the very top. It is the spirit of Jesus Christ, which we obey.
I do not think that he speaks at all well and certainly does not get key information into what he says. His mode of delivery does not suit The Today Programme.
My point is that the manner in which he was interviewed was wrong and that it reflects the attitude of the BBC to all Catholics.
Great letter. Well done.
I would advise watching ITV (ok l'm slightly biased.) There are lots of Catholics working on their programmes (loads at Daybreak) and ITV News has a practicing Catholic as one of their news anchors. (Julie Etchingham.)
If you have CNN, l think their coverage is pretty good reasonable.
Failing that there is Sky News in the morning and Eamonn Holmes is a very nice chap.
If you are forced to listen to the radio in the morning, l'd stick to Classic FM until this is all over.
Thanks for that and I neglected to say that Channel 5 was v good yesterday evening.
The thing about the Beeb is it's notionally the national broadcaster and there's the Licence Fee ishoo.
There's the whole balance thing too. Some people are militant anti-Catholic secularists and some people are Catholics.
I thought it was a very good example of why the BBC needs to develop an anti-bullying policy and should require senior interviewers to demonstrate understanding of balance, lack of bias, and the need for proper instruction on the topic in hand.
The Humphrys 'common sense righteous indignation', without any real insight into what is going on, is probably OK for sports commentary. It was abusive.
Hey, BBC. Did I hear you say, if was any other institution that made cover ups, it would have been closed down by now?
Can Jimmy Fix it for that to happen to the BBC?
BBC = Blatantly Bashing Catholics
Using John Humphrys' argument, the Jimmy-Fix it scandle should have seen the BBC closed down by now.
Then there's the Lib Dems, SWP and various institutions of musical education in Manchester.
If you read the newspapers in the run up to Christmas, they have lots of articles about office parties where some people drink a lot and do things that they later regret.
The fact that these things occur in lots of institutions doesn't make it OK when they happen in the Catholic Church, but it is surprising that the MSM is so shocked or maybe thy are just prurient.
The O'Brien situation is awful because of what he did, whatever that may have been, but made so much worse by the power that he had over the other people concerned. That's why people rightly make a big fuss about teachers in such a situation. It is always a power relationship.
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