Search

The Grey Lady and Whitewashed Tombs

Pope Benedict XVI was in Lebanon last week where the principal Catholic rite, the Maronite, traces its roots to Saint Maroun, who in the fourth century was a friend of Saint John Chrysostom.

This contradicts those in our own country who plead for peace while violating the innocent unborn. Our current President has defended "partial-birth abortion" when (in arguing against the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002), as he infelicitously put it, ". . . that fetus, or child, however you want to describe it, is now outside of the mother's womb . . ." 

It is not surprising that The New York Times should be so opposed to the Catholic Church whose teaching on the sanctity of life exposes the hypocrisy of that publication.  If, according to the adage, "hypocrisy is the tribute which vice pays to virtue," there is much vice promoted by The New York Times, but one is hard pressed to detect the remnant virtue.

Pope Benedict's final Mass in Lebanon attracted 350,000, yet the largest gathering of faithful in the long history of that ancient land was mentioned only on the bottom of page eight of The New York Times with a tiny photograph.  The same issue's "Quotation of the Day" was by an "Egyptian religious scholar" Ismail Mohamed: "We don't think that depictions of the prophets are freedom of expression; we think it is an offense against our rights." 

This is where hypocrisy burst into a veritable tap dance, for in March of this year, the Times ran a full-page advertisement mocking the Catholic Church, and a few days later refused to run a similar one mocking Islam.

The "Grey Lady" is only a few shades removed from what our Lord called "whitewashed tombs."  The mainstream media have defended vulgar and even pornographic anti-Christian films, stage plays, sculptures and painting as "art" entitled by free expression.  When it comes to Islam, there is a different standard.  Perhaps it is because newspaper editors know that Pope Benedict XVI will not demand that they be decapitated.

The Pope risked his life to go to the Middle East.  At 85, he still is on active duty.  And so will his successors be, long after the last subscriber to The New York Times has cancelled his subscription.

Father George William Rutler. "The Grey Lady and Whitewashed Tombs." From the Pastor (September 23, 2012).

Reprinted with permission of Father George W. Rutler.

THE AUTHOR

Since 1988 his weekly television program has been broadcast worldwide on EWTN. Father Rutler has published 17 books, including: Cloud of Witnesses — Dead People I Knew When They Were Alive, Coincidentally: Unserious Reflections on Trivial Connections, A Crisis of Saints: Essays on People and Principles, Brightest and Best, Saint John Vianney: The Cure D'Ars Today, Crisis in Culture, and Adam Danced: The Cross and the Seven Deadly Sins.

Copyright © 2012 Father George W. Rutler