The Catholic Press
Catholics have been encouraged by popes and bishops for over two centuries to read the Catholic press, disregarding Cardinal Wolsey’s admonitions way back that the printing press would be the death of belief. He may have had something there that would be reinforced by even a cursory glance at the Catholic press today.
Catholics in Scotland have access to four Catholic weekly newspapers. Only one, the Scottish Catholic Observer regards itself as native. The Universe puts out an umbrella edition that covers Britain and Ireland, while the Catholic Times seems to be an amalgam of slightly right of centre views. Both are runners from the Gabriel Communications stable, a group dedicated to unremittingly cheerful good news to the exclusion of much that is negative. The fourth, the Catholic Herald, always impresses me as an old boys and girls network that is oriented to matters English. All of them are devoted to the tedious unravelling of a seemingly non-stop parade of celebrations, anniversaries, silver this and golden that, Knights of something and Dames of something else. All of them have letters pages.
The letters page of the Scottish Catholic Observer of February 24 gives a hint of the levels to which the Catholic press has descended. It contains five letters and I quote from two.
Letter 1 concerns itself with a local educational difficulty involving a local Moslem councillor, Bashir Ahmed. The writer describes this individual as follows. “As a character type, I have always placed Bashir Ahmed somewhere between Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela.”
Letter 2 asserts “Psychiatry’s symbol is a crucifix with a snake wrapped around it. It stands for the destruction of Christianity but aims to achieve this goal very subtly”
You couldn’t make up this kind of thing.
Catholics in Scotland have access to four Catholic weekly newspapers. Only one, the Scottish Catholic Observer regards itself as native. The Universe puts out an umbrella edition that covers Britain and Ireland, while the Catholic Times seems to be an amalgam of slightly right of centre views. Both are runners from the Gabriel Communications stable, a group dedicated to unremittingly cheerful good news to the exclusion of much that is negative. The fourth, the Catholic Herald, always impresses me as an old boys and girls network that is oriented to matters English. All of them are devoted to the tedious unravelling of a seemingly non-stop parade of celebrations, anniversaries, silver this and golden that, Knights of something and Dames of something else. All of them have letters pages.
The letters page of the Scottish Catholic Observer of February 24 gives a hint of the levels to which the Catholic press has descended. It contains five letters and I quote from two.
Letter 1 concerns itself with a local educational difficulty involving a local Moslem councillor, Bashir Ahmed. The writer describes this individual as follows. “As a character type, I have always placed Bashir Ahmed somewhere between Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela.”
Letter 2 asserts “Psychiatry’s symbol is a crucifix with a snake wrapped around it. It stands for the destruction of Christianity but aims to achieve this goal very subtly”
You couldn’t make up this kind of thing.
posted by JPK | 2:55 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home