Undermining Pope Benedict’s Work

Edging towards disaster,too: the "Tablet"

The impression caused by the Papal visit is still hovering over Catholic things here in the United Kingdom, as can be seen in the stream of press articles it continues to generate. Still – and as it is only natural – the impact of the visit will soon disappear from the media radar screen. When this happens, the attention will be once again monopolised from the usual actors of the British Catholic arena.

In this contribution on the Catholic Herald, William Oddie points out to an interesting (if foreseeable) phenomenon: the warping of Pope Benedict’s message to suit the agenda of those who don’t like him and work against him.

The dynamic is interesting: the online version of the magazine (more short-lives and news like, so to speak, as it is in the nature of the medium) takes an openly anti-Papal stance; the paper version corrects this, but still makes of Pope Benedict the paladin of the distortions the Tablet also pursues: socialism, environmentalism, third-worldism.

This is, I am afraid, the destiny of everyone who is popular: even his covert enemies will be forced to say that they like them and will try to pursue their own agenda by saying that, hey, what they say is exactly what the popular guy thinks.

We have already seen a particularly shameless example in our disgraceful Archbishop of Westminster implying that Pope Benedict has suddenly decided to re-align himself with his own (Nichols’) position on sexual perversions. Oddie’s article gives just another example of what might become a big fashion.

No doubt, before long the Pope who has criticised environmentalism – seen as a new and false religion – will be praised sky-high as an environmentalist icon by the very same people whom he has criticised, whilst the Pope who has bravely said that it is perfectly legitimate for Catholics to have different opinions about the Iraq War will no doubt be elected to Prince Of Pacifists by all those interested in propagating such a lie.

Everyone wants to align behind Pope Benedict. Even those who want to stab him.

Mundabor