Bbc Tv - Nails Benedict As Architect Of Coverup Crisis

[cmotherofpirl]

Maybe he should pay some attention to the deliberate attack the BBC is spearheading on the Church - the second one in several weeks. The reporting they did about the Popes speech was sinful.

[Ellenita]

[quote]Maybe he should pay some attention to the deliberate attack the BBC is spearheading on the Church - the second one in several weeks. The reporting they did about the Popes speech was sinful.[/quote]

Agreed, but it is also possible isn't it that there are people working in the establishment who are doing it to get at him....those who don't want a practising Catholic as DG.....or even that he is allowing more 'leniency' with such reporting in order to 'prove' that he doesn't have bias himself......

Unlike in the US, declaring you are a Christian or talking about your religious belief does not help your career in public life in the UK and in fact can do the reverse....

[Groo the Wanderer]

yeah...the BBC is just so darned accurate on the facts...they couldn't even get Papa Ben's name right..

"Before being elected as Pope Benedict XVI in April last year, the pontiff was Cardinal Thomas Ratzinger who had, for 24 years, been the head of the powerful Congregation of the Doctrine of The Faith..."

It was Joseph, not Thomas.....duh...

So...anyone else think that if they can't even bother to get such a commonly known fact such as his proper name correct, that the BBC would actually do any homework on the harder stuff?

riiiight...

nice post Budge...full of so much tripe you could use it to cook up a batch of menudo to feed the world for a week....

[Thy Geekdom Come]

Just to show you how the devil still tries to lie in wait for the heal of Christ and His annointed:

Bishops Defend Pope Against BBC Attack

Say News Report Is Misleading

LONDON, OCT. 2, 2006 (Zenit.org).- The bishops of England and Wales are accusing the BBC of misrepresenting two Vatican documents that the news organization says Benedict XVI used to cover-up the sexual abuse of minors.

According to the prelates, the program "Sex Crimes and the Vatican," broadcast Sunday by Panorama, the BBC's investigative news show, is unwarranted and misleading.

The program claims to have uncovered secret Vatican documents that imposed silence regarding all claims of child abuse, and accused then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger -- now Benedict XVI -- of shielding priests from investigation in his previous role as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

One document mentioned is "Crimen sollicitationis," (The Crime of
Solicitation, 1962) issued by the Congregation of the Holy Office -- future Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith -- which was made public in 2003.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, archbishop of Westminster, sent a letter today to Mark Thompson, the director general of the BBC "to express the enormous distress and alarm of the Catholic community" regarding the program.

"No one can deny the devastating effects of child abuse in our society and the damage inflicted on the victims and their families. This is particularly shameful if such abuse is committed by a priest and it is of course legitimate to portray heart-rending elements of this evil," the cardinal said.

The letter continues: "However, your program sets out to inflict grave damage on Benedict XVI, the leader of a billion Catholics throughout the world. It is quite clear to me that the main focus of the program is to seek to connect Benedict XVI with cover-up of child abuse in the Catholic Church. This is malicious and untrue and based on a false presentation of Church documents."

Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, who is also president of the episcopal conference of England and Wales, said that he "cannot understand why no one from your corporation made any attempt to contact the Catholic Church in this country for assistance in seeking accurate information about this matter."

"I must ask if within the BBC there is a persistent bias against the Catholic Church. There will be many, not only Catholics, who will wonder if the BBC is any longer willing to be truly objective in some of its presentations," he said.

Unwarranted attack

Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Birmingham, and chairman of the Catholic Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults, also issued a statement today in which he states that "as a public service broadcaster, the BBC should be ashamed of the standard of the journalism used to create this unwarranted attack on Benedict XVI."

"Viewers will recognize only too well the sensational tactics and misleading editing of the program, which uses old footage and undated interviews. They will know that aspects of the program amount to a deeply prejudiced attack on a revered world religious leader. It will further undermine public confidence in 'Panorama,'" he added.

According to Archbishop Nichols, the program's attacks against Benedict XVI are "false and entirely misleading."'

"It is false because it misrepresents two Vatican documents and uses them quite misleadingly in order to connect the horrors of child abuse to the person of the Pope," he said.

The archbishop continued: "The first document, issued in 1962, is not directly concerned with child abuse at all, but with the misuse of the confessional. This has always been a most serious crime in Church law. The program confuses the misuse of the confessional and the immoral attempts by a priest to silence his victim.

"The second document, issued in 2001, clarified the law of the Church, ensuring that the Vatican is informed of every case of child abuse and that each case is dealt with properly.

"This document does not hinder the investigation by civil authorities of allegations of child abuse, nor is it a method of cover-up, as the program persistently claims. In fact it is a measure of the seriousness with which the Vatican views these offences."

"Since 2001," added the prelate, "Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, took many steps to apply the law of the Church to allegations and offences of child abuse with absolute thoroughness and scruple."

A BBC spokesman announced today that the corporation's management will respond to Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor's letter.

[CatholicCid]

Let's find this Cardinal Thomas Ratzinger and teach him a lesson

[cappie]

Text: Cardinal writes to BBC over Panorama programme

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor has expressed his "enormous distress and alarm of the Catholic Community" over the BBC Panorama 'Sex crimes and the Vatican' programme. The text of his letter to Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC follows below.

Dear Mr Thompson,

In May 2005 I wrote to congratulate the BBC on its coverage of the death and funeral of Pope John Paul II and the election of Pope Benedict XVI.

It is with deep disappointment that I now write to express the enormous distress and alarm of the Catholic community at your decision to broadcast Sex crimes and the Vatican. No-one can deny the devastating effects of child abuse in our society and the damage inflicted on the victims and their families. This is particularly shameful if such abuse is committed by a priest and it is of course legitimate to portray heart-rending elements of this evil.

However, your programme sets out to inflict grave damage on Pope Benedict, the leader of a billion Catholics throughout the world. It is quite clear to me that the main focus of the programme is to seek to connect Pope Benedict with cover-up of child abuse in the Catholic Church. This is malicious and untrue and based on a false presentation of church documents.

I cannot understand why no-one from your Corporation made any attempt to contact the Catholic Church in this country for assistance in seeking accurate information about this matter. I must ask if within the BBC there is a persistent bias against the Catholic Church. There will be many, not only Catholics, who will wonder if the BBC is any longer willing to be truly objective in some of its presentations. What a pity if the respect in which the BBC is held worldwide were to be seriously undermined by the bias and lack of integrity shown in the decision to broadcast a programme such as this.

Yours sincerely

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor

President of the Bishops Conference of England and Wales

Archbishop of Westminster

[cmotherofpirl]

great discussion here:
[url="http://www.bettnet.com/blog/index.php/weblog/bbc_finds_popes_smoking_gun_which_turns_out_to_be_a_non_story/"]http://www.bettnet.com/blog/index.php/webl...be_a_non_story/[/url]

[cappie]

Does the BBC enjoy being so far behind the fact curve?
Apparently the BBC thinks that if the Vatican publishes a document in 2001, (which the Catholic press reported on in early 2002), but the BBC only notices it five years later, the document must have been a deep dark Vatican secret till then. Quick, what's British English for "Get real"?

Britain's Evening Standard reports that the BBC just aired a "Panorama" story about how Pope Benedict XVI, as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, sent a "secret Vatican edict" to bishops around the world (right, like that's a group that could keep a secret if it tried), an edict so secret "that bishops had to keep it locked in a safe at all times", which ordered a massive cover-up of clergy sexual misconduct. Besides narrating the usual litany of "worst-possible-interpretations" of various statements in the document, the Standard couldn't resist piling on with "The [BBC] investigation could not come at a worse time for Pope Benedict, who is desperately trying to mend the Church's relations with the Muslim world..." What the Standard thinks ecclesiastical relations with Muslims have to do with clergy sex abuse is anybody's guess. Maybe it's British humor, you know, like the Standard asserting that Ratzinger's first name is "Thomas". (I don't get it; I mean, the man is only the pope, for crying out loud. Can't the Standard get his name right?)

Anyway, more than a year ago, when another British press organ, The Observer, tried to hype the alleged cover-up angle of this very same story, I blogged on it (27 April 2005), pointing out that Cdl. Joseph Ratzinger's so-called secret document was published in the official journal of the Holy See, the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol. 93 (2001) on pp. 785-788; for that matter, it was available on the Vatican website for at least several months before The Observer thought it broke the story in April of 2005. Now c'mon: it's bad enough the BBC and the Standard don't read the Acta Apostolicae Sedis; don't they even read The Observer?

Anyway, as I said back then, apparently Pope Benedict has a lot to learn about how to keep documents secret: like not publishing them in journals distributed around the world. What surprises me (though only mildly; this is main-line British journalism we're dealing with) is that I get to say it all again.

Discuss the CDF document, if you wish, O Media Elites; debate it even; but don't pretend that it was some sort of dark secret all this time, or portray yourself as valiant crusaders in search of the hidden truths, braving Vatican fury to inform the ignorant masses. Cuz it wasn't, and you're not.

[url="http://www.canonlaw.info/blog.html"]http://www.canonlaw.info/blog.html[/url]

[Jasvon]

You have to wonder why the BBC, who claims [i]Crimen Sollicitationis[/i] was designed to "cover-up" sex abuse, fail to mention that #15-19 obligates anone with knowledge of a priest abusing the confessional to come forward, under pain of excommunication for failing to do so.

God bless you