William Oddie on the secular media and condoms

At the Catholic Herald UK, William Oddie analyzes the impact some Catholic commenters had on the secular media's reaction to the condom issue.

Francis Philips got it dead right in her last blog; the pope’s gripping, highly readable and indispensable book The Light of the World (and if you haven’t read it yet you really should) is about a great deal more than just sex.

The extraordinary distortion by the secular Press of his passing remarks about condoms is now generally seen for what it was: a sign of the fact that papers have to have splash headlines; that’s the way they’re designed: hence the Sunday Telegraph’s declaration of a “historic U-turn by [the] Catholic church”. So the secular response is understandable: journalists need stories; it’s not so much that they don’t care about the truth, but that they really aren’t necessarily equipped, in a story about the Church, to recognise it when it’s staring them in the face.

But parallel to this kind of understandable secular distortion, there was a jumping on this particular bandwagon by some Catholics who really didn’t have that kind of excuse. Perhaps the most informative example of the “historic U-turn by Catholic Church” syndrome among Catholic journalists was the Today programme’s “Thought for the Day” on the morning after the Sunday Telegraph splash headline, uttered from on high by Clifford Longley, the BBC’s token “authoritative” Catholic and the elder statesman of the Tabletistas.

 Read more...

"The Pope believes that dialogue with Islam is crucial"

Francis Phillips writes in the Catholic Herald UK about the Pope's urgent message of the necessity of dialogue with Islam--and why "dialogue does not mean we have to water down what we know to be the truth."

But “dialogue” does not mean we water down what we know to be the truth; it means that, guided by the Holy Spirit, we first of all enter into a relationship of charity towards Muslims and treat them as our brothers and sisters, men and women made in the image and likeness of God, rather than as our antagonists. Of course, Muslims do not always treat Christians thus; but as ours is the religion of love par excellence it is we who have to show them that this is the better path.

Read more...

"Let’s move on from condoms. What the Pope said about the priesthood is more interesting"

Francis Phillips at the Catholic Herald UK describes what she finds most interesting about Light of the World:

Given the amount of ink spilled recently over Pope Benedict’s reference to the use of condoms during his interview with journalist Peter Seewald, people might be forgiven for thinking that his book, “Light of the World” is all about sex – in particular, sex in sinful circumstances. Thinking this would be a great pity. The conversation ranged over a large number of topics, to which the Holy Father responded with great frankness and originality. I am thinking especially of his reply to a question raised by Seewald on the need for married priests.

 Read more...