Breath of fresh something

If anything epitomized the mainstream media’s coverage of the papal election it was the regarded, respected, even revered BBC’s performance. Britain’s Daily Mail summed it up. “The BBC came under fire this evening for its coverage of the election of the new Pope after viewers complained that the on-air translator could not even turn the Lord’s Prayer into correct English. Viewers were taken aback at the attempts of the translator to make the words of Cardinal Bergoglio, who will be known as Pope Francis, understandable to the audience.”

The man obviously had no idea what the Lord’s Prayer was, and made an even bigger hash of the Hail Mary. Obviously it was too much to ask the BBC to hire a translator vaguely familiar with some of the basic prayers of Catholicism as they reported on the election of the new Pope!

Our very own CBC was just as bad. Fr. Thomas Rosica did stellar work in Rome for them, but he must have cringed through some of the journalism. Just a few hours before Pope Francis took to the balcony, an eager young woman host interviewed an elderly and allegedly Catholic woman who quite clearly had no time for anything pontifical.

“There is nothing in Catholic tradition to prevent the election of a female pope,” she opined. Ah, I think you’ll find there is my dear. Quite a lot really, in Scripture, Church teaching, Catholic history, everything. But none of that mattered in this absurd, surreal chunk of wishful thinking transformed into ersatz theology. Miss CBC concluded the nonsense with, “You’re a breath of fresh air.” More like evil wind.

Less crass but equally misleading were the endless references to “the troubled Church” and “the Church at a crossroads.” The Western world faces moral decay, family breakdown, rampant divorce, sexually transmitted diseases that have become so prevalent that they have adapted to an incurable form, mass depression, Islamic triumphalism and social hopelessness. But still, we’re told, it’s the Roman Catholic Church rather than North America that is troubled and at a crossroads.

I will say, however, that there are increasing numbers of solid, informed, orthodox people speaking for Catholicism on Canadian television. It’s not because of altruism, though, but because the old anti-papal liberal types are simply too aged, have passed on or left the Church. Rolodexes bursting with aspiring liberation theologians and angry feminist nuns are now packed with witnesses from the new, modern Church. The new, modern, orthodox Church.

But one has to sympathize with those poor media souls. Because in Pope Francis they have someone who will confuse and beguile them. A vehement defender of traditional marriage, the unborn and Catholic moral teaching on family and truth, he is also an outspoken defender of the poor, marginalized and weak. In crass, secular terms — those employed by mainstream media — he is left as well as right. Thing is, the Church is about neither; look not left or right but up. The Church is not a vehicle for socialism or capitalism but Catholicism. Easy, when you think about it.

They will try to dig up dirt on this saintly man, they will accuse him of betraying his Jesuit colleagues and they will surely throw in the abuse crisis for good measure. It’s all nonsense, and none of it will do any lasting damage. All that matters is that the torch was passed to another Holy Father, and the direct descendant of St. Peter is there to lead us once again.

That breath of fresh air referred to by our CBC friend is indeed blowing, but not from the addled past but the new, pristine present and future. It’s a sweet and pure wind, and it blows away the cobwebs of divide, complaints, resentment and ambition. I have a feeling that the son of an Italian immigrant railway worker who preferred a Buenos Aires apartment to the episcopal palace is going to change the world, while the rest of us change the channel — because we know the truth of it all, even if our “betters” on the networks fail to understand.

God bless Pope Francis, the first of that name. The world awaits miracles and wonders, and you will provide.

(Coren’s latest book is Heresy: Ten Lies They Spread About Christianity. His web site is www. michaelcoren.com.)