"And the First Prize Goes to National Catholic Register"

Huh?

Stephen Hand at TCRNews.com quotes (August 31, 2002) one of his readers:

.... If I could give a prize to the person who wrote the best article defending the Pope from the ire [of JPII's critics] it would have to go to the editorial from the National Catholic Register. IMHO. Bravo! ....

Unaccountably, TCR responds:

Yes. Without a doubt.

Without a doubt, as I have already shown, the editorial praised so highly has the following very serious defects:

• Easily demonstrable historical ignorance
• Abuse of Cardinal Newman and his writings, by making it seem that the Cardinal meant what he clearly did not mean
• Heresy, or the implication of it, by denying that the pope has universal, immediate, ordinary jurisdiction (or writing so loosely that this denial can be readily inferred)

I do not mean to imply, by the way, that I think these errors are intentional: rather, I think the editorialist didn't know the extent of his historical ignorance, didn't mean to take Newman out of context, and didn't mean to stake out an heretical position. The editorialist wrote in haste, reacting emotionally, grasping at straws, any straws. And that is — without a doubt? — the best of its kind?

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Fri. 09/06/02 10:20:05 PM
Categorized as Classic.