Why are the media so utterly hostile to the Pope?
The sneering vitriol heaped upon the Holy Father in advance of the visit in September has been staggering
By Milo Yiannopoulos on Thursday, 22 July 2010

Times columnist Caitlin Moran seems to have escaped censure for her appalling remark about the Catholic Church
The sneering vitriol heaped upon the Holy Father and on Catholics in general by the metropolitan elites in advance of the papal visit in September has been little short of staggering. By now we are well acquainted with the apparent incompetence that has characterised the organisation of the trip, but that doesn’t explain why so many in the press seem to be baying for the Pope’s blood.
Back in March, eccentric Independent columnist Johann Hari wrote one of the most disingenuous pieces of journalism of his career – no mean feat – which, while effortlessly (and brutally) fisked by better-informed commentators, succeeded in convincing those already eager to believe that Pope Benedict XVI was personally culpable for covering up child abuse that “there must be something in it”.
Where his piece was not outright wrong it was laced with distortions and misrepresentations. He wrote: “It is now an indisputable fact that the Catholic Church systematically covered up the rape of children across the globe, and knowingly, consciously put paedophiles in charge of more kids. Joseph Ratzinger – who claims to be “infallible” – was at the heart of this policy for decades.”
What many have suspected as a pernicious anti-Catholic bias at the Times was apparently confirmed when columnist Caitlin Moran tweeted that the Catholic Church “hate[s] women and ****[s] kids” to her 29,000 followers. It was an appalling remark that seems to have attracted no censure from her bosses. (She apparently has no intention of deleting it: at the time of writing, it remains published and in Google’s index.) Who knows what’s going on behind the Times’s paywall? (No one I know has stumped up for it so I couldn’t check.)
Broadcast media have been even worse. Talk about a hate campaign: every dirty trick in the book has been employed to discredit and ridicule Benedict XVI. Just look at what the BBC is planning: a drama called The Pope on Trial, “a 90-minute drama which will take as its premise what would happen if the Pope were to go on trial for covering up sex abuse perpetrated by priests”.
And there are hints, most notably in Damian Thompson’s latest piece for the Spectator, that the British media are storing up something particularly juicy to deploy as Pope Benedict XVI’s plane lands.
All of which begs the question: why?
The Church isn’t really helping the PR operation, with hilariously bad promotional materials for the visit: the official booklet, for example, which looks as though it might have been knocked up by a seven-year-old armed with Microsoft Publisher 97, not to mention the hideous 70s-style parish banners surfacing at the moment. The literature seems to be more concerned with the Vatican’s “green credentials” than, say, the significance of the Pope’s trip for British Catholics.
But why the extraordinary campaign – one might even say conspiracy – to discredit the Church? Surely it cannot be fully explained by the child abuse crisis. What is going on?
Comment & Blogs
Why are the media so utterly hostile to the Pope?
The sneering vitriol heaped upon the Holy Father in advance of the visit in September has been staggering
By Milo Yiannopoulos on Thursday, 22 July 2010
Times columnist Caitlin Moran seems to have escaped censure for her appalling remark about the Catholic Church
The sneering vitriol heaped upon the Holy Father and on Catholics in general by the metropolitan elites in advance of the papal visit in September has been little short of staggering. By now we are well acquainted with the apparent incompetence that has characterised the organisation of the trip, but that doesn’t explain why so many in the press seem to be baying for the Pope’s blood.
Back in March, eccentric Independent columnist Johann Hari wrote one of the most disingenuous pieces of journalism of his career – no mean feat – which, while effortlessly (and brutally) fisked by better-informed commentators, succeeded in convincing those already eager to believe that Pope Benedict XVI was personally culpable for covering up child abuse that “there must be something in it”.
Where his piece was not outright wrong it was laced with distortions and misrepresentations. He wrote: “It is now an indisputable fact that the Catholic Church systematically covered up the rape of children across the globe, and knowingly, consciously put paedophiles in charge of more kids. Joseph Ratzinger – who claims to be “infallible” – was at the heart of this policy for decades.”
What many have suspected as a pernicious anti-Catholic bias at the Times was apparently confirmed when columnist Caitlin Moran tweeted that the Catholic Church “hate[s] women and ****[s] kids” to her 29,000 followers. It was an appalling remark that seems to have attracted no censure from her bosses. (She apparently has no intention of deleting it: at the time of writing, it remains published and in Google’s index.) Who knows what’s going on behind the Times’s paywall? (No one I know has stumped up for it so I couldn’t check.)
Broadcast media have been even worse. Talk about a hate campaign: every dirty trick in the book has been employed to discredit and ridicule Benedict XVI. Just look at what the BBC is planning: a drama called The Pope on Trial, “a 90-minute drama which will take as its premise what would happen if the Pope were to go on trial for covering up sex abuse perpetrated by priests”.
And there are hints, most notably in Damian Thompson’s latest piece for the Spectator, that the British media are storing up something particularly juicy to deploy as Pope Benedict XVI’s plane lands.
All of which begs the question: why?
The Church isn’t really helping the PR operation, with hilariously bad promotional materials for the visit: the official booklet, for example, which looks as though it might have been knocked up by a seven-year-old armed with Microsoft Publisher 97, not to mention the hideous 70s-style parish banners surfacing at the moment. The literature seems to be more concerned with the Vatican’s “green credentials” than, say, the significance of the Pope’s trip for British Catholics.
But why the extraordinary campaign – one might even say conspiracy – to discredit the Church? Surely it cannot be fully explained by the child abuse crisis. What is going on?
In This Article
anti-Catholic bias, anti-Catholicism, BBC, Caitlin Moran, Christopher Hitchens, Damian Thompson, Johann Hari, Papal Visit 2010, Romophobia!Share
About the author
Milo Yiannopoulos
Milo Yiannopoulos is a journalist and broadcaster who was named one of the top 100 most influential figures in Britain's digital economy by Wired magazine.
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