The Roman Emperor Nero, who launched the Age of Martyrs in the 1st century, declared: Christiani non sint (Let the Christians be exterminated). One of Nero’s favorite forms of extermination was the public festivals where Christians were killed by being fed to the lions for the enjoyment of pagan onlookers.
The crowds would be whipped into a frenzy by this blood sport and would often chant, “Death to the Christians!”
Today’s civilized and modern form of blood sport is much more subtle but can be just as effective. Instead of lions, the execution typically involves a willing member of the press exposing the most embarrassing information possible about a victim. The purpose: to silence an opponent.
Shockingly and inexplicably, at the center of this blood sport recently was a publication that bore the name “Catholic,” which was not only the instigator of destruction but also its means, as detailed in Catholic Exchange’s lead article Wednesday. Without rehearsing the incident, it behooves us to inquire what would motivate the National Catholic Reporter, a publication whose mission, according to their website, is to work in the “Roman Catholic tradition” to emphasize “solidarity with the oppressed and respect for all” to engage in such an activity.
The answers lie behind NCR’s worldview. The publication is blatantly “progressive” and secular, despite its name and its possession of a board of directors including at least three Catholic priests and two nuns. NCR editor Tom Roberts, speaking to a Voice of the Faithful gathering last fall said, “I am here as a journalist. I am not a theologian, Church historian, or Church professional of any sort.” His brand of journalism is all too familiar to conservative media watchers.
NCR’s political views are closely aligned with the Democratic Party and its current standard-bearer, John Kerry. Hence the real target they are aiming for is President George W. Bush. What better way to undercut the president’s conservative “family values” platform, which resonates with so many devout Catholics who are critical to the president’s re-election, than by taking out his Catholic advisor with an explosive sex scandal? It beats trying to win on the merits of the issues.
In terms of the presidential campaign, NCR has jumped in with both feet on the Left side. Regarding Kerry, they argue that his taking positions contrary to the Church’s teachings is irrelevant, for religious views have no place in politics. “Personal piety and religious observance are not prerequisites of national leadership,” opined an April editorial which added, “History judges these men not on their religious zeal, but on their performance in office. How God judges them is for God to decide.” Predictably enough NCR has opposed efforts by the Church to correct or at least minimize the scandal caused by renegade Catholic politicians by refusing them Communion.
NCR has also attacked the vast majority of our Faith's pro-lifers (most of whom support the president) for their recognition that abortion is the central issue for Catholics. “God gives every person the wonderful gift of free will, and for conservative Catholics to claim that liberal Catholics are not Catholic based on the single issue of abortion is both shortsighted and hypocritical,” NCR said last summer. In a February editorial, they claimed that to fully embrace the Church’s teaching on abortion, Catholics must “accept that more than 40 million human beings have been legally eliminated since Roe v. Wade became the law of the land 31 years ago. It is clear that many Catholics do not hold to that extreme view of the issue,” they added.
NCR also opposes the president and for that matter, the Vatican, on gay “marriage.” When the Vatican released its Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, declaring that a “Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against” homosexual unions, NCR carried an editorial titled, “Another Vatican Sex Disconnect.” In it, NCR said that this disconnect goes as far back as 1968 to Humanae Vitae and that the current document “introduces no new moral teaching.” They said previously that the “Church teaching on an array of issues having to do with sexuality and sexual expression…is woefully uninformed by modern science and responsible modern theological investigation.”
In a February editorial, NCR declared that the “ruling by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts allowing same-sex civil marriage is a beneficial step along the path of human understanding and human rights.” Despite the Vatican and the USCCB’s strong opposition to gay “marriage,” NCR unsuccessfully tried to split the baby by suggesting that their support of civil marriages for gays and lesbians is not a “cavalier defiance of Church teaching” because “for the purposes of the current debate,” the two “should be separated” — whatever that means.
Finally, NCR’s biggest gripe with President Bush is the Iraq war, and they have provided a steady drumbeat of opposition. Last June, for example, they argued that Bush’s foreign policy document outlining his doctrine to wage a pre-emptive war in a post-9/11 era was “the most radical foreign policy document in U.S. history.”
In their marketing materials, NCR boasts of its “firsthand reporting about events in the Church and the wider world that are of importance to thinking Catholics,” their code for people who don’t “blindly” follow the Church’s teachings, who use their “modern” intellect to pick and choose what beliefs feel good enough to follow, and who have the ability to completely separate their faith from the rest of their worldly interactions. It’s also code for postmodernist humanists who, in the name of Catholicism, are attacking foundational tenets of the Faith, which the rest of us “blind” sheep actually believe were gifted by Jesus to His Bride the Church and have been administered by the Magisterium for the past 2000 years with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
In terms of how they should treat “unthinking Catholics,” NCR could at least hold themselves to the same standards they professed last August when they declared that “Conservative Catholics should…stop condemning liberal Catholics and work to create a better dialogue with their fellow Catholic brethren.” Judging by last week’s reporting, however, if you disagree with NCR, you don’t get dialogue, you get thrown to the lions.
Shame on you National Catholic Reporter.
St. Thomas More, pray for us.
© Copyright 2004 Catholic Exchange
Craig Richardson is the founder of the recently launched Catholic Action Network, an organization committed to calling Catholics to authentic and faithful citizenship particularly on issues of life and family.
