Posted on 05/19/2007 2:57:54 PM PDT by presidio9
IN A RECENT STORY, the Washington Post recognized there is revitalization and renewal within the Catholic Church after years of scandal and turmoil. Amid this renewal, however, is a disturbing trend among some of the most influential Catholics in the media - I like to call them the "three blind mice." By name, they are FOX news channel's Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly, and MSNBC's Chris Matthews. In each of their cases, Catholic teaching has taken a beating and factual reporting on Catholic matters is a joke. I first exposed these maverick Catholics in my new book, "Saving Those Damned Catholics."
Recently, Sean Hannity invited a priest, someone he should revere as a representative of Christ on earth, but condescendingly treated him as he does a left-winger.
Father Tom Euteneuer, president of Human Life International, criticized Mr. Hannity for his "cafeteria Catholicism," picking and choosing which doctrines he prefers as you pick broccoli over beets at the salad bar.
These men have no idea how much damage they are doing by denying Catholic truth, nor do many of the Catholic bishops. Catholic bishops have an obligation to set the record straight when dealing with public figures who persist in supporting moral evils while claiming to be Catholic.
Each of these "three blind mice" should be instructed by his bishop to either stop misrepresenting church teaching or stop calling themselves Catholic.
Their audiences will not realize there is error coming out of their mouths unless they understand basic Church teaching; which cannot be contradicted. In the absence of such clear teaching, which must emanate from the bishops and their priests, there exists a vacuum into which Hannity, Matthews and O'Reilly are spewing garbage. It's a sort of Catholic spin zone.
Hannity has no problem with contraception. He extols the virtues of pro-abortion Catholics such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rudy Giuliani.
Although, he claims he is against abortion. One has to wonder when and what circumstance is his partisan alliance more important than Catholic teaching?
Matthews makes no such duplicitous claim. He is soundly in the pro-abortion camp and never apologizes for being there. He derides his Catholic education and went so far to rant about what he thought was brainwashing when learning about the saints and martyrs of the Church as a kid!
And Mr. "O"? Well, there's a guy who constantly warns his viewers that he will do the bloviating. O'Reilly is "looking out for you," or so he says, while at the same time dealing in half truth and innuendo when it comes to matters Catholic. He insists that nobody really knows when human life begins, and has suggested that a fetus is a "potential" human being rather than a human being with potential.
Their power in the media should demand a higher level of accountability and responsibility. If there truly were a "no spin zone," one would expect that a public figure who claims to be Catholic would avoid spinning Catholic teaching, even for the sake of personal ego.
Just as surely as those mice who chased the farmer's wife lost part of their bodily structure, Catholic public figures who misrepresent basic moral principles by denying their immutability are very likely to lose something as well; but in their cases, it is not a simple body part at risk but rather their immortal souls. *
Editor's note: To contact Judie Brown or learn more about the American Life League visit their Web site at www.ALL.org.
Each Saturday the Daily News offers men and women of faith the opportunity to share their words of life and comfort with our readers.
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Scant few examples offered though.
So Judy Brown is upset that these folks have an opinion?
I neither defend nor upgrade any of the three (well OK, there is the whole “Chrissy” thing but hey...) but I don’t understand what was behind the writing of this?
Talk about your troika of CINOs. Sheesh.
>>Talk about your troika of CINOs. Sheesh.<<
Amen, amen, amen.
No, she is pointing out that a person who rejects a particular faith should not claim to adhere to it.
Hmmm. Why not just call them nappy-headed hos?
“Each of these “three blind mice” should be instructed by his bishop to either stop misrepresenting church teaching or stop calling themselves Catholic.”
Are you kidding? What about Kennedy, Pelosi, Guiliani and countless other “Catholics”. Don’t you know these guys make a living in the MSM and cannot appear to be pro-Christian?
The way that Hannity argued with the priest made me waht to punch him in the jaw. But that would be wrong /sarc.
?Talk about your troika of CINOs. Sheesh.”
Chris Matthews is a conservative in name only? Hah!
Back onto the short bus with you.
>>Chris Matthews is a conservative in name only? Hah!<<
CINO is Catholic in Name only.
Not Conservative....
I realized that, naturally, right after I hit ‘send.’ People shouldn’t use duplicate acronyms on political fora...
But this is the first I've heard about Bill O’Reilly and the beginning of life. He just did an expose on Planned Parenthood this week. He’s exposed Tiller the Killer several times. Based on the amount of reporting that clearly put abortion in a negative light I figured Bill was pretty solid on the Pro-Life side.
I have not seen any other mainstream news anchor do what Bill has done against the abortion ghouls. Have any of you fellow Freepers?
Sadly I have seen him rather accepting of the homo lifestyle, which of course is unacceptable for a Catholic to do.
I'm not defending Kennedy, Pelosi, and Guiliani, but none of them are questioning the faith of others the way the journalists do. Jesus specifically instructed us not to do this.
I wouldn’t forgive or ignore the “pro-death” Catholics as representatives of Catholicism. But neither is Hannity or O’Reilly for example. Each of them rejects Church teaching in various areas of Moral Theology. Certainly a debate amongst theologians is possible on which sins or departures from Moral Theology are the graver, Abortion being worse than Contraception, but that in no way permits the latter. Accept the whole faith or deny the faith. I think that is what you see in Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity who play up their Catholicism but who dissent on Church teaching just as much or a little less than the pro-abort CINOs.
I thought NY had Bishop McGurk?
So how about support for capital punishment?
Abortion isn’t the only issue on which the church has a position, after all.
I agree, but you will find that the Church’s position on the death penalty is not near as absolute as that as abortion. There are circumstances when the death penalty is permissible, even necessary, though rare. I am not sure where O’Reilly and Hannity stand on the death penalty, but I know where they stand on contraception, which is dissenting from Church teaching. Perhaps it isn’t as grave, but still grave.
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