THE
P RTAL
April 2013
Page 20
F a t h e r P e t e r ’s P a ge
Parochialism
= Limited Vision
For those of you who are regular readers of The New York Times (?!) you will have observed that
during the weeks leading up to the recent Papal Election there was a contretemps of colossal magnitude.
to question the Editorial Board
A correspondent from Latin America had the gall,
writing in that newspaper, to question the attitude of
the Editorial Board over their coverage and emphasis
concerning the forthcoming election. He did so in
what we can now see as ‘prophetic’ insight. “Every
time I read The New York Times”, he wrote, “I fall about
laughing!”
translation of the new Missal!!
It perhaps comes as something of a shock to us – and
especially to the editor of The New York Times - to find
out that this is not the reality. In fact the opposite is
the case: nearly all the issues we debate endlessly in the
West are (to use modern jargon) “not even on the Third
World’s radar screen”.
“The fanatical way that the issues of women priests, still not sunk into the minds
The paradigm shift that took place on Thursday 13 th
democracy in the Church, gay marriage et al. are trotted
out as THE important issues facing Catholicism today, March with the election of the Archbishop of Buenos
makes me wonder what planet the Editor is living on!” Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, as Pope Francis has still
not sunk into the minds of the armchair observers of
THE authority in the world today
world affairs – be they in New York, London, or Berlin.
To challenge the Editor of The New York Times
in this way was heresy indeed: “Did the writer not
The possibility that their cataractic vision may have
realise”, one letter replied, “that the Editor of the paper for so long been limited or distorted has still to hit
is THE authority in the world today on all matters, home. The realisation that the world – especially the
ecclesiastical as well as political?”
ecclesiastical world – does not orbit around New York
(or Lambeth Palace in London, for that matter) is only
Even worse, the Latin American correspondent slowly being recognised.
went on: “The fact that the paper implies that the
issues it raises are THE issues of the Church today – the illusion
in contrast to poverty, military dictatorship, and the
Even those of us who rejoice in the name and honour
abuse of power taking place throughout the Western of belonging to the Catholic Church, have perhaps
world - shows that The New York Times is a blinkered, lived for too long under the illusion that ‘Catholic´
parochial and provincial journal”.
was synonymous with ‘Western’, ‘post-enlightenment’,
or even ‘European’ in thinking and attitude.
incandescent
If you were transfixed on watching the smoke on
Thursday, 13 th March, you should have seen the
fumes coming out of the NYT office building in
Eighth Avenue! They were incandescent that anyone –
especially from a ‘Third’ World Country - should dare
to call them ‘parochial’ or ‘provincial’. One of the wonders of our faith is that, with time,
although the truths do not change we nonetheless
grow in our understanding of the gospel committed
to us. In that sense, we can truly say that the Church is
more Catholic now than it was a few months ago; and
will be more so in the months to come.
We can all be seduced to see events, and the world,
through the le