$\"Roman$ <\/a>

Roman Catholic Apb. Chaput<\/p><\/div>These are words some self-styled Orthodox commentators on Church and society would do well to heed. From the article:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the United States, our battles over abortion, family life, same-sex marriage, and other sensitive issues have led to ferocious public smears and legal threats not only of Catholics, but also against Mormons, evangelicals, and other religious believers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd with relatively few exceptions, the mass media tend to cover these disputed issues with a combination of ignorance, laziness, and bias against traditional Christian belief.\u201d<\/p>\n
The archbishop said that Christians \u201cmake a very serious mistake\u201d if they turned to outlets like the New York Times, Newsweek, CNN and MSNBC, \u201cfor reliable news about religion.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThese news media simply don\u2019t provide trustworthy information about religious faith,\u201d he said. \u201cThese are secular operations focused on making a profit \u2026 They have very little sympathy for the Catholic faith, and quite a lot of aggressive skepticism toward any religious community that claims to preach and teach God\u2019s truth.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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MADRID, SPAIN, August 23, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com<\/a>) \u2013 When it comes to finding information on vital issues like abortion, same-sex \u201cmarriage,\u201d and faith, the mainstream media simply can\u2019t be trusted, the incoming archbishop of Philadelphia told a group of youth in Spain last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing uninformed about the world and its problems and issues is a sin against our vocation as disciple,\u201d Archbishop Charles Chaput told his audience during a special World Youth Day session in Madrid. And yet, he went on to note, the Christian believer is faced with a unique challenge in finding accurate sources of information on key issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the United States, our battles over abortion, family life, same-sex marriage, and other sensitive issues have led to ferocious public smears and legal threats not only of Catholics, but also against Mormons, evangelicals, and other religious believers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd with relatively few exceptions, the mass media tend to cover these disputed issues with a combination of ignorance, laziness, and bias against traditional Christian belief.\u201d <\/p>\n
The archbishop said that Christians \u201cmake a very serious mistake\u201d if they turned to outlets like the New York Times, Newsweek, CNN and MSNBC, \u201cfor reliable news about religion.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThese news media simply don\u2019t provide trustworthy information about religious faith,\u201d he said. \u201cThese are secular operations focused on making a profit \u2026 They have very little sympathy for the Catholic faith, and quite a lot of aggressive skepticism toward any religious community that claims to preach and teach God\u2019s truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reacting to the archbishop\u2019s comments, L. Brent Bozell III, the president of the Media Research Center<\/a>, told LifeSiteNews (LSN) that, \u201cArchbishop Chaput is a breath of fresh air.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe secular media don\u2019t believe in God, and even less in the Catholic Church,\u201d Bozell said. \u201cThirty years ago Robert Lichter undertook a survey of the news media and the numbers were stunning: 50% didn\u2019t believe in God, 86% seldom or never attended church or synagogue, 2% were practicing Catholics. That was thirty years ago. The numbers are unquestionably worse today.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prominent Catholic American blogger<\/a> Thomas Peters agreed. \u201cWhen religious news is reported on reliably people have a better opportunity to decide for themselves and weigh the truth claims involved,\u201d he told LifeSiteNews.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the heart of the story is that Christians and other people of faith deserve to have their stories told accurately by the mainstream media,\u201d Peters said. \u201cCatholics have a responsibility to hold the mainstream media and wider culture accountable when they fail to give them a fair hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Archbishop Chaput also told his audience that banning religious communities from taking an active role in civic life imposes \u201ca kind of unofficial state atheism,\u201d and that \u201cforcing religious faith out of a nation\u2019s public square \u2026 does not serve democracy.\u201d <\/p>\n
Religious freedom means being able to worship as one chooses and \u201cincludes the right of religious believers, leaders, and communities to take part vigorously in a nation\u2019s public life,\u201d said the archbishop. He reminded the young people that given the crucial battles over abortion, family life, and homosexual \u201cmarriage\u201d in the United States, they need to prepare themselves to be \u201ccapable defenders\u201d of their faith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
These are words some self-styled Orthodox commentators on Church and society would do well to heed. From the article: \u201cIn the United States, our battles over abortion, family life, same-sex marriage, and other sensitive issues have led to ferocious public smears and legal threats not only of Catholics, but also against Mormons, evangelicals, and other […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7799,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1784],"tags":[82,1447,11,89,50],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10802"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10802"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10887,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10802\/revisions\/10887"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aoiusa.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}