Leave it to most in the leftist secular media to make themselves the Catholic Church's public enemy number one. Not the enemy of all Catholics, mind you Catholic Democrats (or perhaps I should say "Democrat-Catholics") in Congress and their Catholic supporters are the only Catholics most in the leftist secular media seem to appreciate just the Magisterium of the Church.

In a recent interview, Deal Hudson asked Catholic League president Bill Donohue, "Why do media like The New York Times and The Washington Post hate the Catholic Church and the pope? What's the source of the animus?"

Donohue replied: "... [I]t stems from three issues: abortion, gay marriage, and women's ordination. So, when they can nail the Church on promiscuity, they love it. The goal is to weaken the moral authority of the Church so it won't be as persuasive on issues like health care."

I think Donohue is essentially correct, although I would say it a bit differently and expand on it some. Catholic teaching on abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, contraception and women's ordination is, I submit, the main reason for the leftist secular media's animus toward the Church.

Abortion. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law."

Leftist secular journalists reject said teaching.

Homosexuality. The Catechism teaches: "Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that 'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.' They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved."

Leftist secular journalists reject and even despise said teaching.

Euthanasia. The Catechism teaches: "Whatever its motives and means, direct euthanasia consists in putting an end to the lives of handicapped, sick, or dying persons. It is morally unacceptable. Thus an act or omission which, of itself or by intention, causes death in order to eliminate suffering constitutes a murder gravely contrary to the dignity of the human person and to the respect due to the living God, his Creator. The error of judgment into which one can fall in good faith does not change the nature of this murderous act, which must always be forbidden and excluded."

Leftist secular journalists reject said teaching.

Contraception. The Catechism teaches: "Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, 'every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible' is intrinsically evil: Thus the innate language that expresses the total reciprocal self-giving of husband and wife is overlaid, through contraception, by an objectively contradictory language, namely, that of not giving oneself totally to the other. This leads not only to a positive refusal to be open to life but also to a falsification of the inner truth of conjugal love, which is called upon to give itself in personal totality. . . . The difference, both anthropological and moral, between contraception and recourse to the rhythm of the cycle . . . involves in the final analysis two irreconcilable

 

 

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