[Mb-civic] The New Pope and Journalism?s Crisis of Faith

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

 http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-04/22solomon.cfm

 The New Pope and Journalism’s Crisis of Faith

By Norman Solomon

The papacy of Benedict XVI confronts journalists with a key question: 
How much critical scrutiny is appropriate when a religious leader gains 
enormous power?

So far, most American media outlets seem to be walking on eggshells 
to avoid tough coverage of the new pope. Caution is in the air, and 
some of it is valid. Anti-Catholic bigotry has a long and ugly history in 
the United States. News organizations should stay away from 
disparaging the Catholic faith, which certainly deserves as much 
respect as any other religion.

At the same time, the Vatican is a massive global power. Though it has 
no army, it is more powerful than many governments. And in the 
present day, the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church is the 
capital of political reaction garbed in religiosity. Many dividing lines 
between theology and ideology have virtually disappeared.

After more than two decades as a Vatican power broker, Joseph 
Ratzinger is now in charge as Pope Benedict XVI. He is extremely 
well-positioned to push a longstanding agenda that includes hostility 
toward AIDS prevention measures, women’s rights, gay rights and 
movements for social justice. No one in the hierarchy was more 
committed to stances like vehement opposition to condoms while 
millions of people contracted cases of AIDS that could have been 
prevented. And he has been the commander of the Vatican’s war on 
liberation theology.

During the 1980s, it was Ratzinger who led the charge from Rome 
against the wondrous spirit and vibrant activism that galvanized 
Catholics and others across Latin America. While many priests, nuns 
and laity bravely joined together to challenge U.S.-backed regimes 
inflicting economic exploitation, intimidation, torture and murder with 
impunity, Ratzinger used the Vatican’s authority to undermine such 
community-based resistance. He silenced outspoken Church officials 
and installed orthodox clergy who would go along with the deadly 
status quo.

Hours after the smoke cleared over the Vatican and the world learned 
the name of the new pope, Mary Jo McConahay -- an insightful 
journalist who has long covered Latin America -- wrote for Pacific 
News Service about a question blowing in the wind. “What would have 
happened, Guatemalans and El Salvadorans ask to this day, if 
Ratzinger and Pope John Paul II had regarded the Latin American call 
for liberation from autocratic rulers with the same force with which the 
European churchmen supported the Polish Solidarity revolution?”

For right-wing religious activists, Ratzinger has been a Godsend. And 
now that he’s running a church with 1.l billion members, the odds are 
excellent that he will proceed to gladden the hearts of misogynists, 
homophobes, and anti-left crusaders around the world. Contrary to the 
predictable media spin since Tuesday about the uncertainty of his 
papal course (reminiscent of the claims in early 2001 that George W. 
Bush might turn out to be some kind of moderate president), 
everything we know about Ratzinger’s extensive record during the last 
quarter-century tells us that he is a reactionary zealot who is 
determined to shove much of the world’s history of progressive social 
change into reverse. He is a true believer whose ideological theology 
accepts scant diversity and no dissent.

The new papacy is a huge gift to the minority of conservatives in the 
United States who are trying to impose their version of morality on the 
country and the world.

Soon after the 2000 election, an astute analyst of far-right religious 
movements, Frederick Clarkson, wrote that “both the evangelical and 
Catholic Right are developing and promoting a long-term, fundamental 
approach to the practice of faith that links political involvement with 
faith itself. In this case, the Catholic Church is building on its own 
history and also benefiting from the Christian Right's recent efforts to 
create wider space for public expressions of religiosity in civil 
discourse.” Clarkson added that “a shift in the political culture suggests 
that personal and unedited expressions of religious belief for political 
purposes are no longer considered unseemly. Indeed, the suggestion 
is that they are beyond reproach.”

And that’s much of the problem. When a highly debatable position is 
“beyond reproach” -- when religiosity provides cover for all manner of 
manipulations and repression -- it’s easier for demagogic power-
mongers to get away with murder.

Journalists should not let any pious proclamations intimidate them. 
When the policies of a president or prime minister result in 
suppression of human rights or fuel public-health disasters, the news 
media should not hesitate to expose the consequences. And the 
policies of a pope should be no less scrutinized.

________________________________

Norman Solomon’s latest book, “War Made Easy: How Presidents and 
Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death,” will be published in early 
summer. His columns and other writings can be found at: 
www.normansolomon.com 


-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
this email and you want to be on our list, send an email to 
ean at sbcglobal.net and tell us which option you'd like.


"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
   ---   George Orwell


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20050422/510713bf/attachment.htm