HOW do you think the print media cover church topics? My membership of a religious order is bound to influence my perception of how the newspapers treat church matters.
Yet I regularly find myself at odds with the hierarchical Church when it comes to condemning media coverage of the churches. I decided to take one week, beginning Monday, January 13th, and read through The Irish Times and the Irish Independent to look at how they covered church affairs for that week.
It is quite striking how much coverage The Irish Times gives to matters dealing with the Church. There were daily news items on the topic. It reported on the priestly ordination of women deacons in Wales; had a short piece on the Catholic theologian in Sri Lanka who was excommunicated; covered as news two alleged clerical child sex abuse cases before the courts; mentioned Mother Teresa and the mediation role Cardinal Kim was playing in industrial problems in South Korea.
Along with those short news pieces, The Irish Times had six major church pieces during the week. In its "Rite and Reason" column on Tuesday, Father Morgan Costelloe of the Dublin archdiocese wrote about the cause for the canonisation of Matt Talbot and rebuffed points made by Emmet Oliver, a journalist who wrote in December in that column about the holy Dublin working man.
In Wednesday's paper Conor O'Clery wrote a detailed article on relations between the Catholic Church and China, with special reference to Hong Kong. On Saturday Patrick Comerford wrote a serious article on the role of religion in the world, and Brian Fallon had a full page on church architecture on Wednesday.
The paper also reported on CORI's (Conference of Religious of Ireland) response to the Education Bill and on the western bishops' problem with the possible change in the Employment Equality Bill. It gave substantial coverage to Archbishop Desmond Connell's talk at the prison chaplains' meeting where he referred to prison overcrowding. So, reading through The Irish Times for that week, it is clear how much coverage is given to church affairs.
The Irish Independent, on the other hand, had not one serious article on a church matter. It did have news pieces on the two alleged clerical child sex abuse cases; reports on Archbishop Connell at the prison chaplains' meeting, and a piece from the Daily Telegraph on Mother Teresa. In Wednesday's paper it carried a report about Peter Tatchell's visit to Ireland, attempting to "out" a Catholic bishop who, he claims, is a practising homosexual. And, in the following day's paper, Sam Smyth devoted his column to proving the Tatchell story incorrect. It was the biggest piece all week in the paper on any church topic, but was very much a "person related" story.
From that week's reading of the two major Irish dailies you could not conclude that they are "anti Catholic". There are actually no swipes at all. So what's the problem? Up to the mid 1960s the Catholic Church in Ireland received very biased coverage and the bias favoured the Church. That has changed. The Church is in the marketplace and up for grabs like, any other organisation or grouping.
It is here that a problem lies. The Church will say that of its nature it is dealing with the spiritual, the moral order. The newspapers are of their nature concerned with the short term, with personalities and black and white issues. The newspapers inhabit the secular world.
At this stage, it might be pertinent to list the famous points of tension between contemporary media and the Christian faith, first stated by the American Jesuit Avery Dulles. The Church's message is a mystery of faith; the press is investigative and iconoclastic, he says. The Church's message is eternal and seeks to maintain continuity; the press lives off novelty. The Church tries to promote unity; the press specialises in conflict. The Church's work is spiritual; the press concentrates on tangible phenomena.
The Church's structure is hierarchical and complex; the press is part of democracy and has an in built bias in favour of disobedience and dissent. The Church's teachings are often difficult and subtle; the press wants the stories to be simple and striking. The Church believes its message transcends an individual's weakness; the press focuses on personalities. It is people, they say, who grab the headlines - at a terrible price, sometimes, for the unfortunate individual.
YES, there is bound to be tension between the media as we know them and the Church. But to say the Church is not given a fair hearing and is rubbished is not evident from what I read in the Irish dailies in one week in mid January.
I am back at college doing postgraduate work in journalism at the Dublin Institute of Technology. The analysis of the week's papers was a project I had for the course. Since doing the short project I have been watching the two newspapers more carefully for their coverage of church/ religious affairs. I don't think the week I chose was exceptional. Since January 13th I have not seen an article in The Irish Times which in any way could be considered to be "anti" or nasty or unfair.
The hierarchical Irish Church was used to a cosy position. Indeed, it was far too cosy. Being exposed to the marketplace and all the rough and tumble that involves, is a great plus for the Church's well being. Long may it last.
It has just dawned on me that I spelt "church" through most of this article with a capital "C". What does that say?
