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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When O’Reilly starts flapping his gums about religious matters, I cringe and scramble for the remote. As smart and astute as he can be on many a topic, religion and the bible aren’t in his bailiwick. I’ll never forget when he slammed a guest for quoting from Paul’s epistle to the Romans because it wasn’t a “gospel”. O’Reilly’s comment, “That’s why we call it the ‘gospel truth’”. So much ignorance in such a short amount of time.
To be fair, you could replace O’Reilly’s name with Hannity and, other than the example, my comments would be deadly accurate, too.
CINOs, all three.
The Early Church Fathers on the Immaculate Conception - Catholic/Orthodox Caucus
Of the three, I’ll take O’Reilly. He’s confused on the life issues like so many Catholics, but at least he goes after monsters like Tiller.
Hannity always pulls out the line: “I was in the Seminary and studied both theology and Latin.” Then you Google the background and you find that he was in the high school seminary of the Diocese of Rockville Center, where the theology texts were probably from the “Let’s-Make-a-Jesus-Collage” Series from Sadlier, circa 1976, and the Latin was the chorus to Immaculate Mary sung twice a year. Please, Sean. Very impressive background.
You should write for a Catholic magazine. Great stuff!
BTW, I was a victim of the "let's make a collage about littering" school of catechesis, circa 1972. But I had one year with a real nun, which was a year unlike the others. The good part of being a survivor is that I will have great stories to tell my grandchildren. The experience also provided me with the resolve to catechize my own children. The bad part is that I lived, unnecessarily, in utter confusion and mental anguish for about 15 years.
My kids have gone through the Baltimore Catechism several times. They can answer Catechism questions better than I can. But out of respect for our priest and DRE, I put them into the pre-Reconciliation and pre-Eucharist classes. Sadly, little seems to have changed, at least in our parish. A typical comment from my kids: "It's soooo STUPID!" "Draw a picture of things you like to do. DUH!"
"Thou shalt not kill."
Draw your own conclusions.
I listent to Hannity every day after Rush, and over the years he has clearly stated postions that are contrary to Church teaching. That’s his right, of course. I’m just asking, as does Judi Brown, that he not hold himself out as some authority or representative on Catholic teachings.
He’s not very knowledgeable about the Bible and he can really tear into born again Christians. He bloviates...
Do you refer to the "Horrific Holocaust of the Protestant Ministers' sex abuse," or "Horrific Holocaust of the Public School Teachers' sex abuse"? Because the rate of sexual molestation is the same or higher for both Protestant ministers and public school teachers.
Keep things in perspective by doing a little research before parroting the MSM line, which is uniformly and hysterically anti-Catholic.
My research of cases over the past 20 years indicates no evidence whatever that Catholic or other celibate clergy are any more likely to be involved in misconduct or abuse than clergy of any other denomination -- or indeed, than nonclergy.What percentage of priests abuse, and whom do they victimize?Historian Philip Jenkins
Author of the book, Pedophiles and Priests
Forum: The myth of the 'pedophile priest'
Check out Catholic Answers. They even have audio programs that you can listen to on-line.
LOL! I missed that one, but it is perfectly in line with some of his other "greatest hits". Someone who cares about him should just smack him and tell him not to get into the theater until he gets a clue. :)
Yes indeed. He jokingly says that's his job, but sometimes it really is true. :) From what I have learned BOR is as much of a Roman Catholic as WJC is a Baptist. :)
It seems that way with most or at least many of the congresscritters and so called journalists today. They have a smattering of religion and that makes them dangerous (smile). They really have no clue as to what being a Christian really entails.
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