Do we Catholics now understand that the media hates the Catholic Church?

Here’s a personal example:

A few weeks ago, a journalist for the major St Louis newspaper wanted to interview me about Jews and Catholicism – a very controversial topic. I told him that I would only do it he promised that the article wouldn’t be controversial and if I could see it before print.

He refused to make the promise, and so I refused to talk to him. He then turned around and pulled a bunch of quotes from my blog (completely out of context) and published them in the paper that week: “Catholics Actively Proselytizing Jews” or something like that.

The Church knows that she is at “enmity with the world,” but it seems that the Holy See has not yet adjsuted to the age of the internet. Moreover, it seems that the curia is still generally naive about the media and honestly believe expect non-Catholic journalists to be “fair and balanced.”

What we have is the City of Man against the City of God. We cannot expect a truce from the City of Man. The secular media is the calvary of the devil’s army and we need to be prepared for them to spin everything.

I think that the apparatus of the Vatican has not fully appreciated the moral viscousness and speed of the world-wide media.

Regensburg, the sexual scandals in Europe, and now the condom scandal show that the media will never be our friends.

As John Allen and George Weigel have stated, these PR debacles reveal that the Holy See needs a complete makeover. It appears perpetually confused and disordered.

People like to brag, “Well Rome moves slowly for the sake of prudence.” However, we live in a cyber-age. Delay tactics don’t work when your enemies are churning the media outlets with poison.

This isn’t the 16th century. It doesn’t take a year for news to get out – it takes 5 seconds. It took decades for Rome to respond to Martin Luther in the 1500s. Today, with the internet, we don’t have the luxury of decades to clean up a mess.