Magicians, politicians and media
They’re all good at making things appear to be other than what they are.
As I said here earlier in the week, there are too many people reading Vatican documents to refute them instead of to understand them. Thus, all the wild coverage of recent releases from Rome.
I was out nearly all day Wednesday and away from most news, so when finally tuned in I came across WTTW’s Chicago Tonight show precisely when moderator Carol Marin was beginning a serious roundtable discussion with two priests and a Protestant theologian on ‘a new document’ that seemed to be particularly upsetting and causing an outburst in the media that day. Hmmm…..After the recent Latin Mass documents and the latest one on ‘questions regarding doctrine’ that clarified Church teaching, I wondered what in the world hit like a bomb while I was out on a busy day.
Turns out it was the ripple effect. They’re both still causing repercussions, and though this roundtable was assembled (on the face of it) to discuss the Church clarification of its teaching, it really sprang from media coverage of it. What the media are saying about the Church is gaining more traction and causing more controversy than…what the Church is actually saying.
I’d love to put up a transcript of this WTTW show, but it’s not up yet even in video form. Check the above link later, or tomorrow, and it may be there. It’s worth hearing. Marin is a longstanding and outstanding Chicago reporter known for her investigative work. As an interviewer, she tries to provoke, though she listens and hears voices of reason when her premise is flawed. Thankfully, her flawed premise on the Rome document was met with three men very capable of bringing light to all the heat.
Just from recall, I think Marin came out of the gate with a certain moral indignation that ‘the pope’ could be making some truth claims about the Catholic Church that are outrageous and offensive to people across the world of other faiths, all allegations running in the media. She set this up as Benedicts ‘third bombshell’ – after Regensburg last November and the Latin Mass thing last week – that hurts more than helps interreligious dialogue. Her guests were Fr. Thomas Baima of Mundelein Seminary, William Schweiker of the University of Chicago Divinity School and Fr. Donald Senior of the Chicago Theological Union, theologians all, and two Catholic priests. They were all excellent in this discussion in setting the record straight.
First of all, this document was not the pope’s, they clarified, though he ‘signed off on it’ as Marin followed up. It’s an internal Church document. But it’s heavy in its wording, she said, not easily ‘accessible’ to average people. Well, it’s written mostly for theologians, they replied. Marin jumped on that with the challenge ‘then why not just send it around as an internal memo’? I think it was Fr. Baima who made the excellent point that the Church publishes these things to be ‘transparent’, and if they were sent around as internal memos, the media would be pressing them about the secrecy….and even Marin laughed and admitted she’d be asking them ‘about this leaked document I’m holding’ once the press got their hands on it.
It was a reasoned and incisive deliberation on the document clarifiying Church doctrine on the faith. If I find the transcript, I’ll put it up. One of them made a really good point that, after all, nobody would want to join a religion that doesn’t believe it has the truth…
Carl Olson has this great post over at Ignatius Insight parsing some of this down. The Chicago Sun-Times part of it gives a clue to some of the show prep for that Chicago Tonight show…
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Great post, and nice discussion of it on Relevant Radio. Carol Marin serves a good purpose because she’s the viewer’s advocate. In posing her questions and reaction from the point of view of a viewer whose understanding of these issues is from the media accounts only, she sets the theologians up with an opportunity to address the viewer’s concerns and alarms with reasoned answers.
So, her unstudied ‘flawed premise’ approach to the panel ultimately served the truth and the good, in my opinion. She deserves some credit for putting together such an informed panel, and being willing to subject her ‘flawed’ perceptions of the issue to them.
Too often the media presents flawed premises, gets quotes from sources who support the flawed view and never get the Church or reasonable representatives of the Church position, to challenge that view.
Exactly, Gibbons. Marin is a rare professional who elicits informative responses, and reacts to what she learns from that, which is why the show on the Vatican document was so rich and enlightening. She assembled a great group, and the conversation covered a lot of Church and ecumenical ground. It’s rare, good media coverage. I’m asking WTTW to put up the video in ‘producer’s picks.’
It does not surprise me that Marin came out indignant. I live in Chicago and have had the displeasure of experiencing her anti-Catholic bigotry through columns she has written in our local paper. (she is a cradle Catholic with an ax to grind and is very upfront about it!) I am pleased to hear that she was at least able to assemble a panel of credible and enlightened voices to give her the beat down that she deserves.
Jack-About halfway through this roundtable, Marin brought up her Catholic education and recalled some Catechism about the Church’s truth claims, though with some skepticism. But as I said earlier, she was remarkably open to being corrected by the experts with her, which they politely and repeatedly did. She came out of the gate with alarm over the document, but listened well and deferred to the theologians. Oddly, WTTW put up some video about a bird from that day’s show on their website! They should make this roudtable discussion available.