Christiane Amanpour, a non-Catholic, is at it again, telling Catholics not only what they should believe, but also what their religion is now. Last night on CNN’s Newsnight with Aaron Brown, she talked to Italians who don’t agree with the Church’s teachings (surprise, surprise) and concluded with the following:
AMANPOUR: The bottom line, people say, is that they want the church out of their bedroom. You know, it’s very similar to what a lot of reformist Muslims say, too. They do not want the mullahs in their bedrooms. And it does come down to that.
And quite a few of these issues are not about church doctrine. They’re about tradition that have been created over the years, for instance, celibacy, for instance, artificial birth control. And those are the ones you hear about most.
So she compares the Church’s hierarchy to extremist Muslim mullahs and then presumes to tell us that Pope Paul VI’s teaching in Humanae Vitae is not Church doctrine. Oh really? Christiane, where did you get your degree in Catholic theology? When were you nominated to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith? Since when do you get to tell us what is dogmatic and what is not?
Her blatant and crass politicking for Catholic dissidence is disgusting.
Thanks to midwestmom for alerting me to Christiane’s latest since I’ve given up on CNN’s coverage for myself.
You ask “Christiane, where did you get your degree in Catholic theology?” She’s a family friend of the Kennedy’s (don’t recall when I heard that – years ago when John John died I think). I think that explains her full understanding of Catholic doctrine.
Do you suppose Christiane is aware that all Christian denominations considered artificial contraception immoral up until the 1930’s?
As for watching CNN, last night I tuned in for the first time since the Pope died and I was impressed with their coverage with the exception of Amanpour’s inappropriate whining. EWTN’s coverage has been disappointing. They ought to leave a camera fixed on JPII’s body from now until the funeral. No commentary needed.
I have a booklet, some 70 years old, produced by advocates for birth control. It claims that birth control would make marriages stronger and eliminate prostitution.
This has born out to be a great lie, while Humane Vitae stands as a marvelous teaching.
So I’ll pass on paying any attention to St. Christiane.
Must….suppress…Andrea Peyser reference…must…….re…sist…………
The devout stupidity of Ms. Amanpour would be laughable if it weren’t so offensive. For an allegedly insightful journalist, she’s shown herself incapable of any but the most ham-handed comments on religion. Yeah—Catholics = Taliban. Humanae Vitae as first step to burkas and mass executions in soccer stadia. We get it.
In addition to her, another reason I’ve found CNN to be largely unwatchable, is the fact the network has decided to consult the leading lights of the greying Dissentariat. There’s only so much “Pull The Plug” Paris & Co. I can stand.
Yes, it’s obvious that CNN feels the need to counteract any good coverage with the digruntled Catholic/maverick cleric hit piece, but I can still see more there than on EWTN (right now, anyway).
Wolf Blitzer just had Msgr. Kevin Irwin of CUA on. I’ve heard him address priests on the implementation of the new GIRM (I asked the bishop for permission to sit in). Not impressed. I still have the notes and quotes.
While I agree that she made some incorrect statements, I have to ask myself how JPII would have reacted to such a situation: by showing disgust, turning CNN off and saying “I thank you God that you did not make me as bad as her”, or would he have tried to gently and firmly call her and her listeners to the truth?
I have found CNN’s coverage amazingly good, given the secular nature of the station and of its owner. Let us be glad and rejoice that so much attention is lavished on the Church and that so much education is happening. If you think that our schools, our parishes and we ourselves are doing a much better job, you are deluding yourselves.
The task of eliminating all distortions is an ongoing one and will only be accomplished at the end times.
So, let us point to the mistakes, but let us also forgive their trespasses. They are trying…
Roberto:
Playing the pharisee/publican card would be more convincing if I saw any hint of contrition on the part of Ms. Amanpour, i.e., the “trying” you cite. It isn’t there.
I can forgive her the ignorant cheap shots, as I must. But I don’t have to pretend she’s interested in giving Church teaching, or those who hold to it, a fair shake. She isn’t.
If you have counter-examples, I’ll happily retract this. Until then, I’ll continue to patronize her employer’s competitors (MSNBC, FNC), who do seem to be trying.
I like Aaron Brown and Anderson Cooper’s coverage. Very respectful and solemn. Cooper is having a special tonight at 7 pm ET about the Pope in pictures.
I found a page on the CNN.com website where you can point out mistakes in a specific story or by a reporter. Here’s the link for Christiane’s page:
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form4.html?1
Dale,
of course you are free to patronize whoever you want, that is not the issue. My question is whether we are free to condemn this woman and the station she works for because she is ignorant or confused about the Church.
How do you know she (and her colleagues) is not trying? As a teacher and a student I can tell you that sometimes we try and do not succeed. Should I be disgusted by my students for that? Should I abandon them?
We are free to choose what TV to watch, but as Christians we are not free to be disgusted at other people’s ignorance and at behavior we find unacceptable. Pray that the Lord will not use the same standard with us.
If she’s ignorant, it’s willful ignorance. She’s in t he heart of the Church right now where thousands of informed Catholics could give her the truth if only she would bother to ask. she could peruse a half-dozen different Catholic books, incuding the Catechism, if only she would bother to pick them up.
I’m not cutting her any slack. She’s not showing evidence on someone who wants to know the truth, but rather is someone who seeks to spread falsehood as truth.
I take offense at you calling me a hypocrite, Roberto, which is what you have done by comparing this to the pharisee in the pharisee/publican story. If I prefer not patronize a media source that gives a platform to someone who repeatedly works at spreading her lies, then so be it.
We are free to choose what TV to watch, but as Christians we are not free to be disgusted at other people’s ignorance and at behavior we find unacceptable.
Show me where in Catholic teaching it says we are not to be disgusted at behavior we find unacceptable.
Roberto,
You’re grasping at straws in your attempt to be charitable. She is a reporter – it’s her job to find the facts.
How hard could it have been for her to get a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and look up the Church’s stance on artificial contraception (#2370), complete with reference to Humanae Vitae?
Dom – we’re obviously typing at the same time here!
Roberto – does the phrase ‘admonish the sinner’ ring a bell?
Even Christ showed some righteous wrath when his Father’s house was made into a marketplace. I think we should get angry when deliberate disrespect is shown to His Church. We shouldn’t just wave our hands and forgive those who get it wrong, we should defend our patrimony with passion If more Catholics spoke with conviction, how much greater a witness could we be to the world of the eternal Truth of Jesus Christ. We are called to be a light to the world and now the world is watching us. We have an obligation to burn with our brightest light of love for the King of Kings and for his spotless Bride.
Or, more appropriately, “Instruct the ignorant”?
Roberto, I think you’ve been bitten by the Tolerance Bug – it’s okay for liberals to spout their beliefs and opinions but anyone who dares to disagree or engage them in debate is ‘intolerant’. Bunk!
Well said Melanie!
I had this same debate with a woman about the Terri Schiavo situation on a Sojourners forum two weeks ago. As soon as my differing opinion surfaced she accused me of being judgmental and intolerant.
It’s a twisted line of thinking and many people fall prey to it. It’s nothing more than a tactic for shutting up the opposition.
“It claims that birth control would make marriages stronger and eliminate prostitution.”
Thanks for this, dpt. What a joke – w the advent and acceptance of artificial contraception, traditional marriage is crumbling in the West and the sex industry is flourishing! The latter is something I wish the Church would condemn in much greater terms. That is largely why I’d like to see Cardinal Arinze become the next Pope. He mentioned pornography “banalizing” the family at his infamous (read: orthodox) commencement speech at Georgetowne a few years ago. We need priests and Popes who will make more dissenter theologians stomp off in a huff!
And on a happier marriage note, a belated congratulations to Dom and Melanie!
Best wishes –
Joanne Meegan
I partially agree with Roberto too, though I find it sad/amusing when I hear the media reports state “such-n-such poll shows that x% Americans/Catholics think the Church should blah blah.”
Such commentary and insight from the media utimately has no meaning on Church doctrine.
Christiane Amanpour got her degee in Theology at the same place I got mine… that orthodox, conservative bastion known as the University of Rhode Island (a.k.a. You Are High). As a matter of fact, she was one year ahead of me in the college of Arts and Sciences. The magazine “Quadrangles” (for the Quad, where lots of URIers got stoned). If you want to see how truly liberal someone is, you must read what they say in the Alumni magazines of their liberal alma-maters.
The Kennedy connection is a RI one also:
http://www.nicholaskralev.com/FT-amanpour-rubin.html
jamieshub3@hotmail.com
155.49.147.110
2005-04-06 16:04:31
2005-04-06 20:04:31
Dom,
Amanpour and Kennedycomment_author>
Thanks for responding to me. Please understand that I am in no way defending the “things” that this reporter has said that are untrue. What I am doing is not straining at gnats. Your own words were “If she than a fellow Chrsitian. That’s simply patent nonsense.
A Lutheran pastor once advised me never to personally ask for God’s justice or I might actually get it. If you understand that Justice can be as harsh as Mercy is mild, then you will be able to see the need to admonish those who tell patent lies and manipulate the truth in the name of supposed fairness.
Michael,
thanks for expressing my thoughts so nicely.
Dom:
once again, sorry for upsetting you and I thank you heartily for allowing people in your blog even when they have different opinions
Other posters:
May I ask how you can come up with so many conclusions about what I (and Michael) think, plan and conspire by simply knowing my name and having read one question I posed during a lunch break?
I may be wrong in what I said, but how do you know all the rest about me?
Anyway…
I keep hearing that JPII held ‘conservative’ doctrine and dogma and most of the laity disagrees with him on yadada yadada yadada (usual list of complaints). What strikes me is how many people loved JPII, how many Catholics are making the sacrifice to go and pay their respects to him and how universally everyone, Catholic and not, says how holy he was. So I keep thinking how come they think he’s holy and yet they say they disagree with what he upheld? What do they think made him holy and what does holiness do for you—one thing it doesn’t do is to lead you to embrace things that aren’t true.
Christiane…. definitely a dope with an agenda when it comes to Catholicism but don’t you think it forces Catholics to confront what the Church actually teaches? I say this because I once joined a website with all kinds of religious dialogue (not pleasant most of the time) and it forced me to read and learn what the Church really teaches in order so that I could defend it. The more I read, the more I really understood the beauty of Catholicism and the deeper I strove to live up to the Church I said I loved.
ANyone else surprised that the singing and the prayers in St. Peter’s are mostly in Italian and not in Latin? Particularly because this is being broadcast throughout the world.
Roberto, they’re trying all right…….TO MAKE $$$$$$$. That’s their bottom line. Don’t forget that—it makes all the difference. They want the quick news item. They don’t want calm contended people who strive to make sense—not good for the sensationalism business, which is exactly what they’re in.
Colleen: My local paper described Pope John Paul II as a conservative on social issues, and I could not help think that he was so conservative (wink wink) in his views towards the poor, immigrants, infirmed, and towards war, death penalty, corporate/Western responsibility, etc.
Of course ‘social conservative’ has a different context for the media when covering the Church.
“donmping the incredible story itself by filing through to see the pope. Her quick assessment (as if she had blinders on both her heart and mind) was that, as expected, “he looked very embalmed”!!!! Perhaps later she learned the error of her remarks?
FWIW, MSNBC ran a reporter-ette interviewing the editor of America Magazine, a Jesuit whose name I WILL not remember. When he appeared, I told my children that ‘this guy is a snake,’ and sure enough…
The second time the reporter-ette asked him about the issue, he stated that ‘[the Church]…will HAVE TO consider…[women’s ordination]’
I did not wait for him to opine on the issues of artificial birth control or homosexual marriage…
Michael et al,
Check out the Saintly Salmagundi and read “+Bruskewitz on Tolerance and Dialogue”.