US Delegation in St Peter's Bascillica
National Review Online: "When Christiane Amanpour of CNN described John Paul II in the hours after his death as 'the first non-Catholic to be elected pope in more than 455 years,' she provided some much-needed levity to the day. Nobody will hold it against her.
What is more problematic is the media's unconscious tendentiousness in describing the teachings of this pope and his Church. The Pope, nearly everyone said, was a complex man: He was progressive on economics, war, and the death penalty, yet took doctrinaire and divisive positions on moral issues. The media, much less complex, let us know which of these features were laudable and which lamentable - the word 'divisive' being one of the most common cues. And journalists have followed this line with a uniformity of thought that no church could ever attain. The resulting depiction of the Catholic Church and John Paul II is full of distortions - not falsifications, but highly misleading exaggerations....
Finally, the media have kept noting that many Catholics, especially in the West, have flouted the Church's teachings on abortion, birth control, and sexual morality. This is true; but it should be put in context. Even more Catholics have flouted Church teaching on, say, the universal obligation to love one another and the immorality of lying. The odds that the Church will change its teaching on love or lying are approximately as great as the odds that it will bless abortion and non-marital sex — whatever the church of the television anchors may want."
Cardinal Ratzinger Blessing PJPII's Coffin
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